A true blue Calcuttan

Often I wonder what goes into the making of a true-blue Calcuttan – a species I’m convinced is not quite available in any other part of Mother Earth.

Is it the fish he consumes by the fishing net-full that sets him apart or it could be the rosogolla he swallows by the handis, I wonder. I haven’t have the remotest clue, but whatever it is, this certain something has imbued in the city dweller a quality that transcends him above the mortal – to the higher planes of a true-blue Calcuttan.

I once thumbed down a taxi and the out-of-the-way courteous cabby turned out to be an assistant librarian at a government library; he was a proxy cabby that day, filling in for a friend who was down with fever. I was never more flummoxed than that evening.

On another occasion, I saw a man tumble down from his seat in a heap on the floor of a bus when the driver applied the brakes all of a sudden; the man picked himself up, looked at me nonchalantly and deadpanned: “No ballast; I skipped breakfast.”

One evening, years ago, I had to take the local train. Torrential rains had disrupted train services for a few hours, and when the first train trundled in, passengers of three jostled their way into one. Unable to weather that insane crush of humanity, one man extricated himself by holding the handgrip above, and clambered onto the shoulders of the person next to him. He then edged door-ward and, sliding from shoulder to shoulder, and when the livid owner of a trespassed shoulder punched him, he hit back, all the while perched strategically in Siachen.

I thought I hadn’t seen anything funnier till I knocked against this elderly bhadrolok in another city bus. The bus was bumping its way over a cobble-stoned tramway when the man accidentally knocked his head on mine.

This was a calamity, as everyone knows, two heads knocking against each other results in horns coming out of the both. To avert the disaster, the man took instant remedial action: he caught hold of my head, and knocked his against mine once more.

Thanks to his quick reflexes, I haven’t grown antlers, no doubt neither has the stranger. Calcutta, you never cease to amaze me.