Thursday, July 26, 2018

Hangovers in liminality: Kolkata pubs after they are banned

Let us think about a young person belonging to an upwardly mobile middle class of Kolkata having a headache on the Sunday morning. What would be your perception?

There may be many, but the most prominent one might be the like this "the person might have been to a party and drank till midnight to have the  odd headache." This may or may not be the case but this has increasingly become the popular stereotype of the class Kaleidoscope referring to here

The city too often has headaches after the Saturday nights in numerous popular party destinations. One of which happens to the space surrounding City Center I. Kaleidoscope does not want to mention the region as place because the place is never an 'assured' and 'certain' place, but something quasi-known, always changing and difficult to explain space. The space during the making out nights with party becomes even more unknown and uncertain the flow of people and professionals from a variety of places seldom known to each other. Yes there are known people and unknown specialists including the "one night standers" and "professionals" to the regular tireless selves looking for transcendence of everyday existences. Such interfaces gives a liminal dimension to the space and spatial practices.

While Kaleidoscope had to spend some time for a week at the space he could decipher a changing dimension of the number of vehicles parked over the week and sudden rise in the numbers with the weekends. Meanwhile while commuting from his usual office place through an unusual way he could talk to the auto-drivers regarding the changing dimension of the VIP road with closing of bars following a government order which bans bars and pubs from functioning near national highways. There seems to be an inflow of selves and professionals creating an even strong liminality near the city center I.

Meanwhile, there are remains of the time that crisscrosses through the liminality leaving behind a few marks, few hangovers like this:


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