A Summer in Calcutta

   She had treated herself to the Epiphone Black Beauty with her meager savings that summer, from a music store in Piccadilly. And not many weeks after the decidedly successful purchase, she boarded a flight to Calcutta and reached home, greeting me with an all-too-familiar toothy smile when she spotted me waiting at the pickup area of the airport. 

She lived in the 1990s and loved the Beatles of the 1960s. One could hardly miss the sight of the the tall freckled blondie, walking briskly down Beadon Street, sporting those scarves and headbands popularized in America during the 1960s counterculture. I was working as a journalist for the Herald then, and the better part of my weekends were spent scouring the city with a camera and notebook in search of credible content. She would accompany me, often taking the trouble to drive me around the city in her tumbledown Maruti Gypsy, with me shouting directions above the music of Ray Charles blaring on the stereo. We used to halt at the main crossing near the Indian Hobby Centre and stroll down the dimly lit street, looking for records of Moheener Ghoraguli in vintage vinyl stores, sometimes stopping for ice cream at Scoop. 

Conductive to nostalgia in Calcutta, winter would arrive, bringing with it the concerts at 18/2 Dover Lane or rooftop musical gatherings at the rundown warehouse near Victoria Memorial. She would often book tickets to the theater, usually Bengali plays (of which she understood very little) in North Calcutta's theatre para. These sessions were concluded with drinks in the dingy bars at Shyambazar, followed by an inebriated run for the last metro ride home. At times, she would grab her guitar and play the songs of Nico, sometimes humming softly, and on other occasions, singing tunelessly, unconcerned, under the effect of whiskey and tobacco.

However, true to those 'thought for the day' apologues delivered to half-sleepy, half-interested middle school children in Calcutta's posh Convent schools, "good times do not last forever". 

It was the summer of 1992. 

The crisis had started earlier that month when communal riots took over the city, a clear

 indictment of further trouble. It was her last week in Calcutta, and we were yet to conclude our Christmas shopping, most of which was to be shipped to the UK after her departure. We had decided to lunch at Coffee Room that weekend, an eatery down the street at a busy chowk in Bhawanipore.  The morning had been fairly uneventful without any signs of forthcoming trouble. Nothing disrupted the uneasy calm that prevailed over the scarred, restless metropolis until later that afternoon. 

For the second time that week, another Indian workday scene was shattered by the rioters' deadly rampage. 

I could only describe the event as unanticipated, instantaneous. 

Out of nowhere, columns of uniformed men came sweeping down the street in an attempt to control a violent, sudden riot, instigating a state of inert befuddlement among those present in the vicinity. The manager tried in vain to fasten the bolts and draw the blinds when evacuating the customers became impossible. People scurried under tables and darted into the nearest closets and cupboards, at the same time realizing that it would not help. Vandalizing shops were on their agenda, and at around 3 pm, amidst all the confusion, with people trying to escape the lathi-charge and tear gas, a gunshot blared past my ear and left me slumped over her lifeless figure. 

The New York times did their job and covered the event the next day. So much ado. Except that the Epiphone no longer accompanied the hits of the Beatles. The music had died.

A/N: This story was originally published in the anthology 'Chariots of Rebellion' by Writer Order. This is an edited, improved version of the same story.