The Banks of Kolkata

A short story taking place in the heart of west Bengal.

The Banks of Kolkata
i

Deep in the heart of west Bengal stands Rabindra Setu, the once exuberant Hooghly river coursing through its spindly iron legs, slow and mirky. Mirky as always. The cantilever that connects, west to east, Howrah to Kolkata, inherits its name from Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet known both for his rhapsodizing words and, just as equally, his divine looks.

Skin dark as the rich earth after heavy downpour, though cracked dry as if it were drought instead. Hair - pure as snow yet to touch the earth, with such natural tufts of curls, it was as if they were anointed with ambrosia from the gods themselves. And his eyes; omniscient orbs that gaze far past the foreground, past the blinking horizon, into some other plane. The sort that look into another world. Undecipherable; enthralled in thought.

Not without a touch of irony, the Rabindra Setu, commonly known as the Howrah Bridge, is nothing like the man of which it was named. Obvious to anyone who lay eyes on it, this prominent Bengali landmark was sprung forth from the molten womb of industry without a cry. Nothing but a heaping mass of metal jutting out of a muddled waterway, trodden everyday by thousands of smog coughing mechanical beasts. A machination of man devised for commute.

And in the pitch of night, whether quiescent or rambunctious, when the waterway turns to churning algid abyss, a man moves to turns on Howrah's aureate glow. Illuminated against the starkness of night, as if to somehow distract from its true nature, the luminescence almost, if only for a moment, paints itself part of the midnight horizon. As if it were always meant to be. Rabindra Setu.

On the east side of the Hooghly lay cement banks, the sort of which vagrants and drunks oft congregate to in hopes of finding rest, silence, and solace. Galleries of poverty and anguish, forlorn souls linger like ghosts on these banks, though this night, the banks are empty as a coffin. None but one occupy the bank in languish this eve.

A silhouette, if only by the reflection of the glowing Rabindra on the churning water, sits hunched, arms crossed into lap, legs dangling helplessly over cement bank. From the soles of his old white sneakers, beaten grey, to the skin of the water, would be twice the man's height, fully erect. He makes no sound. The breeze on the water presses into his wearied skin, delicately caressing his slumped frame. A salted droplet runs down the side of his cheek, falling slow, before reaching the precipice where it hangs, for a moment, before casting itself down into his rummaged collar.

Earlier that night, he was home. Home to his wife, and her father, and her mother. His were gone from this earth long ago. Tired and triumphant he strode into his own humble abode. Another day vanquished, the endless loading and shipping of pallets of Jute to foreign countries sated for the time being.

Residing to an apartment in an old Kolkata highrise, he managed to scrape by, though without making a name for himself. Slumping through the door he removed his patched windbreaker, throwing it on a hook in a faded yellow wall. Found it in the trash behind a tourist hotel three years ago, stained with curry, the sleeves ripped to shreds. Patagonia. Now a dark navy blue with long strips of plaid stitched to the sleeves, he managed to repair it with cloth torn from a disheveled couch he salvaged from a trashheap. He scraped by.

His wife was in the bathroom as he coast into the kitchen, looking for dinner kept hot. Instead in his path, a vibrating phone upon the kitchen table, resting caddy corner against the wall, to maximize space. An old floral tablecloth rest over it, depicting bouquets of faded pink and blue flowers, accompanied by purple paisleys with gold trim. He thought it was ugly, but seeing it, he smiled and picked up the brickish Nokia that lay upon the abominable tablecloth.

A text.

20:49 - Ram: I will embrace you again

Heart sinking into his soul, as silent as a man could be on all of earth or heaven, he set the phone down, took his patchwork coat from the grasp of the faded yellow wall, and left home behind. Far behind. Far down to the banks of Kolkata.

And there he sit, not to sob, or to think. Not yet dead, but no longer alive. Two bottles of a mild painkiller helped him calm his nerves. So there he sat in the dark, until a calvalcade of tiny trumpets broke the silence, as pale blue light poured forth from his hands, highlighting his face. Deep sunk eyes, as if bore trenches, lay against a squared skull, a bountiful orchard of peppered stubble planted deep in his jawline. Shadows danced across his face, playing tricks of age and shape. He slowly opened his phone

A text.


01:42 " Jaya: Where are you? Please call!!! We are worried. Please call. I love you.

A sigh for the ages escaped this man's chest; a gale, a soughing breeze of languish and sorrow. Poseidon himself could not stir the air so. His hands fumbled over his phone, finding his contact list. Clumsily he navigates to the second name on the list, before his thumb finds the green aura of the call button.

It rings twice.

“Brother! Where are you! We are looking for you! Where are you, we will come to find you.”

“Jaya is cheating on me.”

“W-What?! Bharat, you are mistaken. Jaya would never do that " Now where are you?”

“I heard her talking on the phone. It was a man.”

“So? Plenty of women talk to men! It could have been me for all you know!”

“Ramachander?”

“Yes, Bharat?”

“I love you.”

As the phone moved away from his face, he could hear his brother's response as he ended the call.
He brought the phone to his face. Finding it harder and harder to discern the names, he navigated slowly back to his contact list, to find Jaya. The message list.


01:42 " Jaya: Where are you? Please call!!! We are worried. Please call. I love you.

He stares at the text wistfully for but a moment, before diverting his waning energy to the keys once more. Several minutes later, his reply was carried through tower, to satellite, to tower, to phone.

01:58 " Bhar: I am with the banks of Kolkata.

A chime played, echoing, to signify the deed. For a phone, it sounded beautiful. Too much so. His fingers gave way, letting the device splash down into the brackish waters below, bouncing off the cement, leaving a black mark upon the slab.

He zipped up his coat, tilted his chin, and with what strength he had, planted his hands upon the cool cement bank. His head turned toward the horizon. Eyes welling upon the point of eruption. As if it were always meant to be. Rabindra Setu.

Pushing off into the abyss
A splash - then silence.

Author's Note

I appreciate honesty.
I appreciate constructive honesty more.

Reviews

[Luisa]

Overall, I do really like this piece. I like the mood you're going for, and I like how you use lengthy and poetic descriptions. The biggest problem I have with this one is your word choice (which is occasionally either incorrect, or the words are very obscure in a way that distracts me from the story) and your sentence structure (which is often somewhat convoluted).

As for the word choice comment, I'll give a few examples. For one, describing his eyes as "omniscient orbs" doesn't sit right with me; I just don't like when people describe eyes as "orbs." It just doesn't really work for me, personally. Also, describing the night as "whether quiescent or rambunctious" seems a little unnecessary…I don't see it really adding to my understanding of the scene/mood/work, and it feels a bit forced because the words draw so much attention to themselves. You occasionally have a tendency to use words that are TOO long/obscure, which makes it harder to read fluently by distracting from the meaning of the sentence.

As for syntax, your third sentence is long, convoluted, and riddled with commas. I'd recommend breaking the ideas into multiple sentences in order to keep the reader moving through the paragraph. (Also, "just as equally" strikes me as redundant; "just as important" or "equally important" might fit better.)

You also begin many sentences the same way - with a descriptive phrase that modifies the rest of the sentence (ex: "Deep in the heart…", "Residing to an apartment in an old Kolkata highrise…", "Not without a touch of irony…", etc.). That's perfectly valid, but I find that you do it just a little too often in this particular piece.

You also use many sentence fragments that I find make it a bit choppy to read. The occasional artistic fragment is okay, but it's best to incorporate them into real sentences to keep the flow of ideas moving rather than cutting them off with many short sentences.

Wow, that turned out to be a very critical review. I did really like it, especially your descriptions, but I feel that some simply grammatical, rhetorical mistakes or weaker moments detracted from the high points.