I remember, Part IV: Cuckoo's Boston

Boston, for me, will always be akin to a spa experience. Except that spas don't smell of old books and their pristine surroundings are not criss-crossed with T lines. Boston never failed to rejuvenate me whenever I visited her familiar streets.

You know how unknowingly you zone into a few qualities in a new lover - ones that remind you of your old one? Boston was an upgraded version of my old love, Calcutta. I never knew how I loved the old dame of the East until I was greeted with mild whiffs of her in Boston nooks and crannies. The frequent Boston visits started with a childhood friend's (lets call her Cuckoo, for reasons best known to her) move to the great city.

The very first visit evokes feelings of sweet pain - I had just gone through my first (and last) break-up and was hoping to get away from it all with a week-long trip to Boston. Cuckoo, at that time, used to share her living space with three other graduate students. One bedroom shared by 4 girls gives rise to very amusing stories. No, not that kind.

Boston Public Gardens, Quincy Market and Cambridge were some of my favourite (yes, the British spelling of the word) spots. Cuckoo loved to walk and did not have a car - which, I am guessing, is a blessing in Boston. Any given day, we would start from nearabout Museum of Fine Arts and traipse all over the city, crossing the Fens, walking by beautiful old residences adorned with bougainvillaea look-alikes. [A picture of lovers in the background and ducks in the fore was to inspire me in later days] At the point where my legs started to feel tired, our eyes were greeted by the Charles river, lined with jogging lanes. We would cross over the bridge into Cambridge - always synonymous with cobble-stoned streets and bookshops. And, of course, how could a Bengali restaurant with "machher jhol bhaat" listed on the menu stuck to its window be any less attractive?

Nov 3, 2010

If you are a Calcuttan, you know how you would (and possibly, still) take pride in the trams, dusty roads, shooting the breeze on dulcet evenings as you filtered the city's creaks and sighs into an experience that can only be romanticised? Calcutta is not a pretty city but we adorn her with the epithet, Tilottama because as Calcuttans, that is what we do - we romanticise. Every nook and cranny of that city strums my heartstrings effortlessly even as I choke on fumes during our annual pilgrimage. And, perhaps that is why I love Boston so. Calcutta's snooty sibling, Boston, entices me with her criss-crossing T lines, museums and sightings of lovers and ducks in the park. She exists because Bostonians exist. In their minds but more importantly, in their hearts.

A sense that envelops you, cocoons you, infuses you with a faint fragrance even when you find yourself friendless on distant Dallas shores.