Tuesday, December 10, 2013

The Age-Old with the Modern


I happened to click this on my trip to Kolkata last year. I was on my way to probably one of Kolkata's biggest mall South City (at least that's what I thought based on how popular it is there) and was in a cab.

The cab stopped right opposite the mall in a small lane. And that is when I looked out and saw these two men, one old, one young, sitting there, oblivious to the world, working on with the utmost concentration.

The 'shop' they have looks more like a closet in a corner wall of some home, but it's their all. The signboard says 'Roy Enterprises' and it says something in Bengali, all of which I couldn't read, but the bottom line says that 'all kinds of chart papers are available here.' I quite liked the way it was written as we don't speak bengali that way, so it was a novelty for me.

The cab was waiting there for quite some time, but not for a moment did these two look up from their work. I couldn't help but realise that bang opposite was this swanky mall with Kolkata's decked up youth flocking to it sporting the latest fashion. And here was this lone young guy, sitting with the older man, carrying on with his work like any other day.

I moved on once the light turned green for us, but some day, if I happen to be near there again, I would like to look them up....

- Debolina Raja Gupta


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