C/O Salim Manzil, Kolkata

 For the first-time visitor, Kolkata's Chitpur Road, now Rabindra Sarani, is a raid on sensation, sense-making and signification.

The reflexive ethnographer disentangles herself momentarily from the traffic congestion outside the 'Badi Masjid,' as the muezzin starts sounding the call to namaz on the microphone. It was almost time for the evening prayers- namaz-i-maghrib- and men (namazi log, as one of the officials pointed out) were already making their way inside the congregational prayer hall. Birds circled about the mosque's two minarets breaking into the menacing Calcutta skyline as the first rak'at rolled onto the terrace where I was standing. From a window adjacent to the courtyard of the masjid, we sighted a man participating in the congregational prayers from his own room next door. 

We were on the lookout for a very specific attar that afternoon. Itr-e-gil: the earthly smell that follows the first spell of rain. The shopkeepers at the Calcutta branch of the Lucknowi Asghar Ali Mohammad Ali Perfumers informed us that the herbs and spices required to craft that particular scent were not available at that moment. We would have to hunt down the urban smellscapes a few more times to source the materials for its ritual regeneration. Stepping out of the women's Wuzukhana, we went back to the masjid compound for one last time, and climbed to the third floor- now empty following the maghrib prayer.

The windows in the gallery, incidentally facing the direction of the Qiblah opens up to a view of the 'Salim Manzil'. The erstwhile residence of Gauhar Jaan. One wonders if the sounds from her mehfils emanating from behind those walls ever slipped into the interiors of the masjid, for it did slip into the bylanes of Chitpur road- the more senior occupiers of the neighborhood's teashops and fruit stalls who still speak fondly of 'Gauhar Bai' will testify to that. The final verses of one of the few Bengali songs recorded by Gauhar Jaan for the gramophone passed through my mind- one that seemed particularly in line with Gauhar's feisty spirit. I am tempted to cite a very interesting  anecdote that I came across in Vikram Sampath's book: it is said that Miss Gauhar Jaan, having paid no heed to the viceroy's dictum, would take her evening rides in a six horse chariot irrespective of the 1000-ruppee fine that was levied on her. Defiantly, she asks:

এমন ধনী কে শহরে
আমার পাখি রাখলে ধ’রে,
দেখলে পরে মেরে ধরে

কেড়ে নেব প্রাণ-ময়না।

It is almost impossible to explore the layered, unpredictable sensory sound worlds of Chitpur Road in the span of a single afternoon. I gather my field notes and a 6-ml bottle of Jannat-ul-firdaus- a routine indulgence, perhaps?- and head towards the MG Road Metro Station. Besides a couple of landscape shots, I had no memorabilia that could make up a representative collection of my visit to the Salim Manzil. Yet all this time, Gauhar Jaan had been travelling with me in my own seductive, privatised, mobile soundworld- through underground subways, to university cafeterias and during fieldwork tasks. Through that sprightly voice that announces at the end of each recording: "my name is Gauhar Jaan!"

There is, as always, the menace of ethnography- to deal with the agency of absence, the intentionality of the absent voice, ghosts in the head, perhaps? Perhaps, where ethnography fails: अगर तू इत्तिफ़ाक़न मिल भी जाये/ तेरी फुरक़त के सदमें कम ना होंगे!