Metro Rail Geometry

While taking a class on Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project Supriya di had spoken of the Gariahat boulevard that used to be. I have hazy recollections of the boulevard, and it's one of those cases where I'm not sure I've transposed images from elsewhere and imagined what it must have been like. I do remember it being a thing during my childhood. The Parents would occasionally declare on our way back from my Mama-bari, which is at Hindustan Park, that we will drop in at the boulevard today. It caused considerable but indefinite excitement.

Looking at the Gariahat flyover now, it is difficult to recall what the place must have looked like. And the strange thing about photographs in the public domain is that there aren't too many photographs of everyday public spaces. Many of the places and passages in the city that are familiar to us now get quite obliterated when new structures take their place. The one major development project that sprung to mind was the metro corridor along the E.M. Bypass. There are several images from first project of constructing the metro lines around the city that may be found in books on the Calcutta metro railway. I'm sure the current project too is being duly documented.

In my own way I wanted to document some of the forms and shapes that emerge during the process of construction, patterns that disappear to our eyes once the structures assume their roles and start serving as stations and tracks. Here are some photographs, taken over the span of a year or so, but really, on two or three outings in all. Taking Priyanka's advice I've changed the display of images to Large since this is primarily a picture post.

At Karunamoyee the steps have lent themselves to temporary seating for roadside eateries

This, I thought, was a lovely idea: to commemorate the kinds of visuals we see when 

raw materials for a construction project wait by the roadside for their turn to be integrated

I like to think of this as the rib-cage of the gigantic Metrosaurus

Gari baranda::গাড়ি বারান্দা (2)

A few weeks back I had posted the first in the Gari baranda series. Over the course of the documentation I hope to find certain patterns in the kinds of activities that go on underneath their shades: the ones around the Hazra Road crossing, as the photographs attest, are dominated by lottery-ticket sellers, padlock and hair-comb traders, cobblers, badaam-bhaja men, so on. Little did I know then that I would have occasion to include in this blog certain incidents that I am much more personally involved with, under a similar heading. With this post I will break hoped-for rigour of the Gari baranda series, and make an exception.

On 11 March 1922 the foundation stone was laid and the building was completed in 1924. Aurobindo Bhavan, which serves today as the administrative building of Jadavpur University, has had an interesting history, let's say. The gari baranda is not quite what I am looking for, but as I said, I'll make an exception.

About a month back a group of peaceful protestors demanding a just investigation into an unfortunate case of sexual and physical violence on campus were beaten up by the police and some unrecognised not-so-happy-looking men. Since then the student protest has taken on a different dimension and has seen significant support from colleges and universities around the globe and from the general body of citizens. The assault on the students took place under the Gari baranda. A number of videos that are circulating on the internet can be found quite easily. I wasn't in Kolkata then and returned only about a week later. The protests continued even after the Pujas, and day before yesterday (16-17 October) we took to the same Gari baranda to commemorate the incidents of the previous month. There was art, there was music, there was laughter, as there had been on the interrupted night. There was a 24-hour hunger strike. I believe that the students did successfully manage to 'take back' the space.

"In the functional sense of the word, the Antigones of the world will always admit defeat in the hands of the Creons", as Sri Gautam Bhadra puts it. But I share with him the hope that the cries have penetrated some walls at least and stirred a few indifferent minds. Small victories, yes, but to me, the administrative building Gari baranda has never looked this beautiful.

Photo from the October 16/17th night courtesy:
"International Student Movement - Asia (ISM-Asia)" on Facebook

P.S. Thanks, Anushka, for suggesting that this could be part of the Gari baranda series.

Sclater Street

Most of the stalls that were on Brick Lane and many more besides line Sclater Street, near Bethnal Green. As for the social layering of Brick Lane and its adjoining areas there is a fair amount of literature. What seems to have remained more or less constant, at least superficially, is the chaotic nature of the street. One may or may not think it a nice street, but here's one James Greenwood writing many years back:

‘It was before noon when I arrived at that salubrious locality, and certainly I did not find myself immediately in the enjoyment of what had been promised. Sclater Street is not a nice street. It may not be responsible for its dilapidation, for its poverty-stricken aspect, or its peculiar atmosphere—which seems to be composed chiefly of the exhalations from fried fish-pans, and from the shops of French polishers, tinctured with essence of mouse-cage and rabbit hutch.’ - James Greenwood, In Strange Company

It used to be a great bird-market. That is not its most prominent feature right now, and the neighbourhood has come to be known as 'Bangla town' or some variant thereof over the last several decades.

I was at a conference recently where someone mentioned that studies of Indian cities should perhaps consider "Indian cities" outside India. I'll not go into that right now, but I thought it was a very interesting idea to work on. This post, however, is about a curious transcription that caught my eye recently. In English and in Bangla the street sign reads Sclater Street, but the Bengali transcription uses a triple-conjunct, which I haven't seen elsewhere—not counting words like 'রাষ্ট্র' or 'অন্ত্য' which are somewhat like liquid consonants (approximations of 'r' or 'ʎ') added to a conjunct. I've been trying to find another example of something similar to this, and wondering at the same time, if this is one of those wonderful transformations or adjustments a script makes to accommodate a different language.

Sroyon took the photo.