The Pearls of Catharsis Times Issue 04, July 2017 | Page 67

A Simple Sight

If you have ever been to Calcutta in the summer, then you would know that summers in the city are like being in a perpetual steam bath. The buses in the city which are always crowded are made worse in the summer because you can hardly travel on a bus without having your olfactory system overwhelmed by the dampness and the perspiration of your fellow commuters, mixed with the carcinogenic fumes from the passing by automobiles. The conductors go on reciting the rhythmic chants of where the bus is headed and the important stoppages that are on the way, standing on the footboard occasionally lighting a‘ bidi.’ You can catch different kinds of conversations depending on the route and the timing. For example if you are on a bus from Shyambazar to College street, at ten in the morning then probably most of your fellow passengers would be college fresher, discussing social media. But if you are on a bus from Esplanade at midnight then it is most likely that the maximum of your fellow passengers would be drunken middle aged men, philosophising about life and the virtues of drinking. But this are all scenes which anyone can identify and generalize or even enjoy if one has a bit of soul left after living in a city long enough. It was a sight which one can either be proud of or remain unaffected by. Proud of the fact that one is able to grasp the importance and significance of it, for it holds a deep meaning only to those who wish to see through a lens of historical perspective and eyes which have not yet become incapable of perceiving the simple pleasures and the various unique emotions of humanity. But most others remain oblivious of the great dynamics of human society and its transformations, the structures and patterns, in spite of being acted upon by them continuously. On one of these hot and humid summer days the mother and her daughter had boarded the bus together from a suburban area. This area is mostly inhabited by those middle class families who are probably, second generation learners and are not privileged with the social capital of a long history of English education or royal posts under the British government, yet they hold the same jobs in the IT sector as the people whose ancestors