Sunday, November 11, 2018

Rapidly erasing memories - latecapital everyday Kolkata

"The city changes everyday rapidly. It changes so fast that it's difficult to keep a track..." says an old taxi driver. Yes, Kaleidoscope sees that everyday. He remembers his father used to teach him mechanisms of remembering a place by creating and memorising landmarks.  A shop, a particular house at a crossing, etc. used to serve the purpose effectively.

Kaleidoscope wonders what would be his advise to his only a few months old son when he grows up?  Surely not to memorise important landmarks because they might change any day.

If these landmarks change so rapidly that even a taxi driver find it hard to memorize what will happen to the very essential character of the city?

Meanwhile as kaleidoscope crosses near Chetla he finds that a new skyrise is on the making. It has displaced the earlier construction. The only mark of past that remains is is the window of a a possible grocery shop. One of the the ends of the shop bears 1990s characteristic style advertisements belong to that of popular brand of a detergent: surf.

The multi hinged shop window and the characteristic 1990 advertisement show a surrender of past to the neo-liberal growth of capitalistic Pursuit.

Kaleidoscope knows like many others do, perhaps less than the taxi driver the city will transform itself to such an extent that the name Kolkata will become just a context without characteristic significations.

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