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