Beginning Digging

Three of us had bonded at university over shared love of the past. Now that we work at different places, canteen tables cannot serve as the best place to generate ideas. Something more virtual, yet something more lasting must take shape. Hence, this blog for ourselves.

But what for you? How do you make things last? Through living in places and deeply imprinting the soil, perhaps. Through home, through language and song, perhaps. A patchwork on a quilt or a soiled boot, perhaps? Stories, or photographs? Through the eyes of your grandfather or the hands of your grandmother? All of life is a remembrance of a life already lived. Our blog would talk about memories and places that pin the past to the earth. Places that cannot be subdued, just like the people who died while refusing to die out forever. We shall post about faded yet persisting stories. Ruins, objects, texts- 'vintage' if you must call them so, but far more than collectibles.

Our blog is not a personal blog. You can expect articles that interest a casual traveler; or if you are interested in folk culture of India, history or architecture, literature of a bygone century, handicrafts, ancient traditions, objects and rituals, or plain philosophical musings of old-souls like us. None of us are professional photographers or travelers- our vocation is humanities, and that is what we have designed our blog to incorporate and express best.

So, fellow nostalgists, return and remember.

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A Visit to The Pen Hospital in Esplanade (Dharmatala)

Subscribe …I answered "The smell of old people's houses". The question was "What do you really like the most in life?" – Jep Gamberdella in The Great Beauty (2013) A few days back I had a chance to visit the Dharmatala area with a friend of mine, who was soon leaving for US. We strolled around the footpath amidst the bustling crowd of buyers, sellers and bystanders, and looked round. As we came near the Metro Gate no. 4, behind the stalls selling modern day clothing, we were able to find a shop not so modern- The Pen Hospital. On the wall by the shop Mr. Riyaz in his shop The shopkeeper of The Pen Hospital Pens on display The dusty rack Some of the pens I bought. I had to return the green coloured Parker England though since that one had a crack near the nib. Later I bought a Cross instead. For those who are fountain pen aficionado the existence of this shop is not a breaking news, for this shop with its dusty old di...

Excavation of a Forgotten Painter: The Moments of his Art

Subscribe In the earlier post I had tried to dig up the silken glow of Maniklal Banerjee, an eminent painter aligned to the Bengal School of Art, not so well remembered, who also happens to be my great grandfather. Like the familiar yet elusive beauty of his native village Sonaranga, he has remained less than fully tangible. He has remained somewhere amidst the luminous haze of family reminisces and the "ghost paintings"-as I call them- mere photographs retained of his best work on silk. I have received them archived on a CD disk, that came to me as a family heirloom. Sonaranga of his younger days, drawn from memory and impressions. I have decided to call him, at times, by the name of Manik Babu, even though the man is both, a great painter and my great-grandfather instead of the more endearing “Boro-Dadu”. I have accused him at times in my mind, for remaining like a myth in our household. It was as if everybody knew half-truths about him, yet he did leave ...

Upanishad in stories

Subscribe Sometimes you find a book close to your heart, you read that book a few times, hoping to return to it again, only to lose it. No matter how hard you search for it, you cannot find it again. I am sure that things like this happen to all of us. Objects and people are similar after all- they disappear leaving empty smoke behind… When in secondary school, at the age of twelve years, I had the occasion of reading a few books with stories from Upanishads in them, and two particular books struck me as especially interesting. Not having enough knowledge of Sanskrit, I could not read the stories in their original form, nor had I the patience back then to rummage through the entire Upanishads just in order to find a few stories. These two particular books, in all their lucidity of prose and yet not-so-dramatized retelling of the stories drew me to them repeatedly. One even had particular references of the stories being retold, and in this case re-written, so that if one wer...

Faded Earth

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