Impromptu and Incredible

Nothing can be quite as exciting as the first glance of water, be it that final bend of the road that opens out to the sea at Digha, or the glimpses of the Hooghly beyond the garbage dump that is Strand Road. One such unexpected find is an abandoned jetty beyond Prinsep Ghat, if you are walking towards it from Babughat. You should be warned though that approaching the jetty involves some amount of walking along the circular railway tracks, and when you have a melting ice cream cone in your hand, and can hear the rumbling of the tracks along with the damning announcement of “charte-ponchash’er Majherhat local”, you will be forgiven for feeling faint.

A five minute walk courting death and you shall hit upon the jetty, which is directly below the Vidyasagar Setu, and contains the most incredible edge-of-the-world view of the river. Impeded by a canoodling couple who had blocked the best seat in the jetty [at the edge of it], we made our peace with sitting a little way off, and enjoying the pleasant evening breeze, as the slowly setting sun gracefully allowed us a few photographs. I always knew the sun is a woman.

Occasional hazards, especially if you belong to the fairer sex, will include being hooted at by the passengers of passing local trains, but the view in front of you will arouse forgiveness and general peace with mankind. Just when we thought the day could not get any better, it did. Having decided to take the circular rail train back home, we boarded one, intending to disembark at Sovabajar/Ahiritola. The circular rail is probably one of the most underrated of our means of transport in the city. At Rs. 4 from Prinsep Ghat to Sovabajar, it is the cheapest route home, and the most beautiful. The train tracks run alongside the river, and the view of it, illuminated by the lights of the Vidyasagar Setu and the launches on the river, is thrilling. The journey to Sovabajar takes around 20 minutes [this includes a brief delay at the BBD Bag station].

The scenario changes once it crosses BBD-Bag station though. But after a day well spent, even the ramshackle storehouses and godowns of Posta will seem to have an air of mystery about them, intensifying as you cross the arched entrance to Nimtala Crematorium which has always exerted a fascinatingly morbid attraction [or vice versa] on me.