THE DAILY OBSERVER-(M-34)

 😎THE DAILY OBSERVER-(M-34)😎

Sat 9 Jan 2021

        OH KOLKATA !

Good morning everyone. While the last issue dealt with the beginning stages of my not-so-illustrious career saga, this one deals with the curtains-down stage.

         The other day, drowsily basking in the warmth of all the kindness and affection being showered on me, my hand instinctively reached out for that all-comforting liquid nourishment., the elixir, restorer of tissues.That brought me back rudely to my senses and i was wide awake in a flash. Took me back to that fateful day in 2016 when i was discharged  from Apollo Hospital, Kolkata on Dec 25. A cheerful broad smile was still plastered on my face when Dr. Roy informed me that my drinking and smoking days may be considered to be over. "OK Doc , " i answered, still groping for the silver lining in that dark cloud, "For how long would that be? "  There followed the  chilling pronouncement  that this was virtually a life sentence. Talk of an excellent fun-filled life being smashed to smithereens in a second. A daily evening routine so painstakingly built up and religiously observed over the years was being so callously brought to a halt ! "But what about all those poor cigarette and liquor manufacturers losing a steady customer, Doc ? Not to talk of the loss of revenue to the State and the effects thereupon on the lives of the poor and needy multitudes? " Despite these queries being accompanied by a sharp look and uttered rather sarcastically, the doctor was unmoved and stood firm. That particular chapter of my life was closed for good ( pun not intended), said the great man. Whatever little hope i had that my better half would lend a sympathetic ear and help me out in that hour of need was dashed the minute the ambulance reached home.The entire stock of liquor and tobbaco including my proud and painstaking collection of assorted hookahs and pipes had vanished. All i could do was to shake my brand new metal walker in a menacing way and curse under my breath. Nothing worked .The anger was snubbed and the pleading looks were ignored. Looked like there was nothing left to look forward to in life. It still pains even to talk of that fateful day.Let's turn towards better things.

           Not long after i joined duty in the City of Joy sometime on 01 Apr 2015  i realised there were two sides to it, the other one being the Black Hole of Kolkata. The date i joined itself turns out to be rather significant in hindsight, though  at that time i had paid scant attention. What happened soon after was definitely a sign of things to come. 

       One of my first actions on arrival at this grand old city was to make a serious attempt at getting to know the Bhadralok there. A friend in Chennai had helpfully given me the phone number of a gentleman who was a direct descendant of the ertswhile Royal family of a Northeastern State. On contacting him, i was invited to his place for dinner. After a long drive, i reached the modified palace of a residence after some difficulty in locating it. The road on which this former palace was situated would be the last  where one would expect it to be. i was given a warm welcome after i entered the hall through a passage with ivory on both sides providing a kind of arched walk-way. After loads of excellent Scotch, dinner was served .Here came the rub - first of all fish is not something i am overly fond of. Still, after being sufficiently warmed up with the correct appetizer, i do not mind nibbling at fish in some form or the other. I found myself staring at a huge fish-head on my dinner plate. So far,so good. Me staring at a fish-head on my plate is not too bad,but no amount of whiskey can make me even pretend to enjoy the spectacle of a fish staring out at me from the plate, that too a rather large- sized one with huge popping eyes ! Unsettling, definitely, to say the least. But the way this was served with so much love and affection as a special dish in honour of the guest, it would have been rude not to accept. The rest of the night was spent between me pretending to relish it on one hand, while politely and firmly seeing to it that there was no chance whatsoever of a second helping finding its way on to my plate on the other.Reaching home well past midnight, i dropped into bed fully dressed, hoping for the best.

        Needless, to say ,  the next morning found me saddled with the mother of all hangovers, struggling hard to stop the world whirling around me. Later,I was sitting in the balcony on the third floor of my office where i had my temporary residence in the guest-room, trying to smoke away the memories of the staring fish. Matters came to a head when i almost fell off the steel chair on which i was sitting. That was too much, i felt.There was only one remedy in such a situation. The time-tested remedy was to hit the nearest bar and get outside of a couple of cold beers . Stepping out of the office,i noticed a crowd collected outside the Airport Authority building on the other side of the road but paid scant attention to it..  Reaching a roadside bar about a kilometer away, i was surprised to find it totally empty and the entire staff gathered outside. I entered and shouted out for a beer.Guys slowly started trickling in and in answer to my puzzled looks, one of them pointed to the TV Screen on the wall. A local channel was announcing that some time back there had been a severe earthquake in Nepal, tremors of which had been felt in the City of Joy..The crowd collected outside the Airports Authority office that i had noticed on my way  was being shown on screen.All the seemingly mysterioius events since the time i woke up had little to do with my hangover. The earth had actually been shaking.Sign of things to come ? Oh, Kolkata ! This was only the beginning of a series of colourful bhalo-bhasha episodes at the fag end of my official life.