Grey city

The skyline doesn’t change much, but underneath
a few doors close, keys turn firmly in their locks.
Never again the same those routes, entire cities -
as hearts and hearths both seep out from crumbling blocks.


Every year monsoons pour down and new vines reach
for a bolder grip, the banyan saplings stalk
the cracks between mortar and bricks, something’s breached
that can’t be made whole again with skill or talk.


The days and nights turn just like keys in keyholes
and they shut me out. Pulverise the bedrock
in rude light, trap me in tangled wires and poles
in broadened ruins of lanes and their aftershocks.


Each visit fewer paths and doors to call on,
no stones to turn, more bridges burnt. More alone.

This one was sparked off by a close aunt, who asked sometime ago - has Kolkata become a city for the aged? 

It hit home harder while I was there last month. A younger cousin was planning a move after almost a decade there. A good few houses in my circle are now locked up or sold off, because the senior generation is no more, and the younger ones have made their lives elsewhere. Each time I go back, there are progressively fewer people to call on, fewer roads to travel.

Kolkata has been greying for a long time now, deindustrialisation has meant jobs drying up. The city was once reputed for its premier institutes of education, but they got riddled with political interference way back and never recovered, with the result that many students today pursue post-16 studies in other parts of the country. All in all, young people are leaving in droves; the elderly are increasingly alone and isolated. Not exactly a brilliant recipe for happiness.