Canal transforms - nostalgia and kitch in New Town, Kolkata

  There used to be an unimportant route of memories to meet river, often unchecked. Yes it did carry water and since until recent times it was a country side, the water was nicer. Just nicer enough to grow water Lily and some edible roots and underwater growths. Kaleidoscope could see villagers reclaiming the canal, collecting water Lily flower seems and roots to consume.

Just yesterday it was, kaleidoscope remembers unkempt spiking trees and bushes along with the reflection of the sky added some tales of past. Not to forget birds especially three different types of Kingfishers added extra attraction to kaleidoscopic imagination.
Meanwhile, blue-white encroached and parallel running lanes were paved. It was a slow but definite entrance of the state to reclaim and redesign the space, taking away from the lap of nature.

While kaleidoscope could see trees trimmed there is this recent addition - lightposts. Soon to follow the charaistic blue-white led drapes. Perhaps another end to the beauty as it is and an onslaught of transformation to something which can be best described as kitsch.

While kaleidoscope walked pass the kanak-champak flowering tree someone whispers from the tree "let there be darkness".

See how the trees added spring to the canal
http://sumanparole.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-spring-has-to-come.html?m=1

See how the canal side looked before the addition

https://sumanparole.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-last-canal-newtown-and-great.html?m=1

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.

A fake coin and the postmodern depthless presents in everyday life

Kaleidoscope and the queen rushes to the expressway connector in order to reach their destinations. It is a hurried moment and as always happens both of them are in no mood to waste a moment. Meanwhile a person approaches "could you please spell out what is written on it?"
Kaleidoscope and the queen become speechless to find out an East India Company 1818 coin in his hand. He convincingly says that he has found it underground while working in a place close to airport. 

The impression that the coin bears is also available in internt: http://kalyan.olx.in/east-india-company-1818-shri-ram-darbar-5-headed-shri-hanuman-rare-temple-token-coin-iid-153375084

Sell it:

Kaleidoscope with his pea sized intellect reads out the inscription and he fails to understand the hidden strategy. The person keeps on saying that he intends to sell it if someone pays him 'a-man-day'. Kaleidoscope asks "which is?" "Yes, it is Rs. 300/-" the man replies. Kaleidoscope (still thinks!) does not show any interest in the coin but reluctantly offers Rs. 50/-. 

The religious issues:

Since the coin numismatically Hinduised. It includes Lord Ram, his brother Laxman, his wife Sita and Hanuman. The man promptly says "I am a Muslim and my contractor says I should not keep it." 

Sold!

Not because of any attempt to save Lord Rama from a Muslim possession, but just because Queen is from archaeology, and Kaleidoscope is magically inclined to old things they make the purchase. 

Fake or Real:

Now comes the real test. Should Kaleidoscope feel the pride of possessing a coin nearly 200 years old, or he has just been cheated. The queen's father and many others (excepting Kaleidoscope, perhaps) have experiences of such encounters with fake coin sellers. Furthermore, one of Kaleidoscope's neighborhood sister from archaeology also says as the queen feels too that the coin, most probably is a fake copy. Kaleidoscope comes back and asks google, as google knows everything. While Kaleidoscope finds out, the design that the coin carries indeed resembles 1818 East India Company Coin.
Meanwhile a thought passes Kaleidoscope's mind, are not we living in an era where restorative efforts, such as Kaleidoscope's inclination towards old stuffs in postmodern condition, reflects the loss of an active relation to past as we have lost a sense of historical location and are locked into an endless succession of depthless presents (Jameson 1991). Hence, Kaleidoscope finds the answer. Whether or not the coin is true or a true copy of the original does not really matter. He is in the world with a whole historically original consumers' appetite for a world [that] transformed into sheer images of itself and for pseudoevents and "spectacles" (the term of the situationists). It is for such objects that we may reserve Plato's conception of the "simulacrum," - the identical copy for which no original has ever existed.

Kaleidoscope is amazed to find out:

1. His consumer-centrist attitudes towards the endless successions of depthless presents
2. His and queen's crave for a restorative efforts in their nostalgic (/colonial) hangover in a postmodern condition.
3. A juxtaposition of religion, consumerism and images in which Kaleidoscope finds the world in which he chooses to live. 

Longing for a home that never exists: (A)historical emotion and return of the repressed

When hostel students organise farewell and freshers' welcome, the hostels are usually transformed to a carnivalsque. It becomes upside down. Pupil suddenly becomes eager to confess, there are boundaries that get dissolved and people like Kaleidoscope often sees naked reality. So once in a programme like this, in a moment when Kaleidoscope's pupil were in a mood of confession, a young boy shouted "if you don't have brother don't make a dummy brother, if you don't have a sister don't make dummy sister." It suddenly opens a window, a nostalgic one where Kaleidoscope can see pupil's longing for a home that never really exist.

What might have happened:

Possibility I:
1. The guy had found a sister (highly probably) in a girl
2. The sisterhood continued for a while and it got broken up

Possibility: II
1. The guy was looking for a significant relationship in an otherwise manly hostel world and he finally ended up in getting a sister (and not a fiancee)
2. Eventually the girl realised the underground demand and they broke up

Possibility: III
1. The guy and girl both seek a significant relationship
2. They found each-other
3. At the end of the year either one (in this case probably it is the girl) got back to the lost home, went back to the real brother (or the sister, probably not in this case), hence eventual painful separation because "blood is thicker than the water."

Well Kaleidoscope can keep on listing numerous permutations and combinations of the possibilities. However, the bottom line is that there are people who continue to seek for the world that never really exist. Kaleidoscope would rather see this as a restorative effort of the people who are born in a nuclear family (or are compelled to live in a nucleus life), miss out relationships which are historically defined as important but absent. The reflective dimension of nostalgia is intertwined as Svetlana Boym sees it not as an individual sickness but a symptom of our age, a historical emotion. As the world evolves to modernity, worlds find new time and space coeval with it. A result of which is longing for not only a space but also for a time. Hence worlds are filled with ancient ghosts, people's restorative efforts and a heterotopic outcome. It is highly likely that it will call for more uncalled for carnivalsques engulfing Kaleidoscope in his restorative efforts and his longing for a imagined home. The hostel boy, the transformed spaces, vanishing places and juxtaposed and nucleus modernity do make a space for the return of nostalgia as repressed are often returned.

Building up the Jungle: places and transformations

The tempo of work continues even after twilight 

Kaleidoscope is now living in Post Belghoria Expressway era.

The archaeaology of expressway:

The inception began before Kaleidoscope even born. The place which is now speedy expressway was a huge pile of soil, covered with lusty green grass surrounded by trees. It was the place for Kaleidoscope to play around with friends, in his early childhood. Later he went for morning walks and evening walks. Watching birds had been larger than life experience. Expressway, which now completely engulfs the lusty green field is black and white, speedy and enhances the quality of life of kaleidoscope (?).

The newer Jungle:

Since, the place around the expressway is now well connected to the airport (only 3 mins of bus ride), dunlop (6 mins of bus ride), and NH 6  and NH 2 (15 mins of bus ride), there are urban jungles coming up. The places where Kaleidoscope used to play around... large water bodies and wetlands that housed several wetland birds are now filled up by large scale earth moving equipments. There is a sudden replacement of the greenery, birds, fishes and several other material beings. Much plausibly memories, attachments to the place where Kaleidoscope thought he belonged is also getting replaced rapidly.