An Afternoon with Bernard in Park Street

 On several occasions, I wrote about how Park Street and its surroundings are going through a silent cultural degeneration. As a Brownigian optimist, I have no qualms in accepting the inevitable change which a few love to label as ‘the only constant. I have an augmented version of the story. For me, harmony is the only constant; coexistence is the only constant. This is what still makes Kolkata a liveable city, as my Messiah Anjan Dutt once wrote. Haripada, Mary Ann and Alibaba can live in the same locality despite any major strife.

If any change signifies choosing something over the other, an evil over a lesser one, an imminent socio-economic disaster over an equilibrated identical existence, constantly attempting to get out of the comfort zone because there’s no limit to excel, I prefer not to take this route. I don’t adhere to a struggle which lets me down in the near term, doesn’t allow me to relish what I already have, and tires me when I am fifty because of its ephemerally insatiable thrust of illusion.

Park Street, once frequented by a few like us, was once a reverberating place, thanks to its cosmopolitan outlook, where you could think beyond your identity while clinging steadfastly to your root. That Park Street, its café where people would gather after studying French at Alliance Française du Bengale or German at Max Muller Bhavan is disappearing soon than expected. For a few like us, it’s a sad lyre that still makes music. Hence, this afternoon we gathered here over JD and Budweiser Magnum to discuss how we look around the society, the culture, and the linguistic connection which binds us strongly and whets up our appetite for mindful parlance.