This author’s visit to her hometown revealed a poignant truth: grief and joy can coexist

Ei shohor jaane amar prothom shob kichu/
Palate chai joto shey ashe amar pichu pichu
—Kabir Suman

Singer Kabir Suman wrote these lines, which loosely translates to This city knows all my firsts/ No matter how much I try to flee, it follows me close behind, way back in 1991. Thirty-three years later, nothing encapsulates my relationship with Calcutta better than these two lines.

On January 7, 2023, I lost my father. Seven days later, I left the city in a blur, overwhelmed by grief. I haven’t gone back to Calcutta since. For the first few months, I told myself that I wasn’t ready. It wasn’t only that I had lost him; I had lost my anchor, my sense of belonging in a city that was once my heartbeat. Staying away since then has been, in part, a way to cope, a way to avoid the reality that his absence has changed my relationship with Calcutta. But now, two years on, I wonder if avoiding it has kept me from the very closure I seek.

There’s a strange intimacy in the way a city cradles you. My first school, first love, first heartbreak, and my first tiny triumph—all linger here in this city I once called home. Calcutta, with its narrow bylanes and humid air, knows all of these. And I can feel its knowing gaze.

A part of me has begun to crave that return. I want to walk through the old neighbourhoods, retrace the routes he loved, visit our favourite restaurants in Tangra, and sit at the local tea stall he would frequent. These memories have grown both sharp and soft over time, but they are incomplete. I need the city, need to immerse in it, be surrounded by its noisy, overwhelming familiarity as a way to confront what I lost.

For two years, I have carried my grief in solitude, shared only with the few close people. But in Calcutta, there would be reminders everywhere. And that is probably the fear in this return, too. I dread the pang of seeing our home, empty and altered, or meeting neighbours who would speak of him in the past tense. But maybe that’s precisely why I must go back—to feel the weight of his absence, to see how life has carried on. I have carried the memory of my father like a precious, fragile relic. I’m not expecting closure, or even catharsis. What I hope for is something simpler: To feel his presence as well as his absence intertwined in the city that shaped us both. I hope to find, in the echoes of Calcutta, a way to finally, quietly say goodbye.

I left Calcutta almost a decade ago, clutching a oneway ticket. But the departure wasn’t easy. I was leaving behind everything familiar: the bustling streets of Park Street, the yellow taxis, the street hawkers, and of course, the food. To this day, I haven’t tasted a biryani quite like the one you get at Arsalan or a mishti doi as rich as the ones sold in local sweet shops. Calcutta’s flavours are not subtle—they’re bold, unapologetic, and impossible to forget. Veteran journalist Vir Sanghvi once wrote that if you want a city with a soul, come to Calcutta.

True, and that is probably why I could never untangle myself from the ghost of Calcutta. The city follows me in ways I can’t explain—it’s in my love for films, music, protests, and politics, it’s in the way I pronounce words, the faint hint of my Bengali accent slipping through no matter how much I try to smooth it out.
Calcutta is not for everyone. The city is almost like a time capsule—unending traffic, unbearable humidity, and a pace of life that is often frustratingly slow. But these are the very things that make Calcutta what it is—more than a city, it’s an emotion as many who have lived in the city have said before me. In a world that’s increasingly obsessed with speed and efficiency, Calcutta is a reminder to slow down, appreciate what you have, and find joy in the simpler things of life.

And yet, there’s a suffocating weight to it all. It’s as if Calcutta won’t let me move on. It’s not just the memories that haunt me but the unfulfilled promises I made to the city as a young adult. But I did leave all of that behind because I wanted newness, the thrill of anonymity, and the chance to rewrite who I was without the weight of who I had been.

Both age and tragedies are great teachers. Over time, I have realised the futility of truly escaping. And while I’ve grown to love the cities I’ve lived in since, none of them feel quite like home. Because home, for me, will always be Calcutta.

Come February, I have promised myself to visit the city. I am aware that it will not lessen my grief, but I hope it gives me the tools to carry it with grace. I hope to find the strength to heal, to move forward, and to carry the love of what I’d lost. I hope to discover that grief could coexist with happiness.

This article first appeared in Harper's Bazaar India December 2024 print issue.

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