I have just wrapped up my work. It’s late into the night, or rather early in the morning. I come down, slowly along the flight of steps. Generally, as I come down this flight, I am expectant of seeing the night of Kolkata with its lights and darkness, hiding the dirt and poverty and lending a glamour and desolation to this city. Today I expect something new, since its way beyond times when decent people roam around.

The car is waiting and so is Arindam. We start off towards Sealdah. The rains have just washed the earth lending a newly found freshness to the air. There are puddles along the road and the car as it cuts through the water, splashes it on the grass alongside the road.

I am tired. The day has been long but fulfilling. The relief is evident and shared by the trees swaying contentedly in the night; freshened by the rains. The roads are silent, not a soul in place. A few dogs have started mating with the onset and their quarrels over the bitch continue.

We take a forsaken road from Chingrighatta. The area is lined with small cottages on one side and a long lake on the other. “The level of the water has increased”, Arindam remarks and we talk about water and fish and the beauty of Kolkata. The road is long and lonely, like a path in the woods. There is a huge stone kept right at the centre of the road and it has been so for many days, Arindam remarks nobody bothering to move it away. Vehicles detour past it.

The solitary travel of our car is getting on my nerves a bit. And when I cannot control it any longer, the lane joins a main road. We turn left onto a bridge. The lights have increased as the trains below the bridge tell me that Sealdah railway station is here. The light of the trains is very bleak, as it appears from over the bridge and the interiors quite dark. I am unable to make out if there are any people inside the train. Sealdah bears a deserted look, but cleaner than Howrah.

Just further along we turn into M.G. Road. The M.G. Road at night appears completely different. People sleeping on the footpath are huddled under the portico of some Victorian building that provides shelter from the rain. In absence of the rains, they would have been spread out on the footpaths like the thousands of others elsewhere in Kolkata. Rains must be sending all these people into a cursing mood, especially when it comes as late as to spoil their sleep.

The driver is a Bihari as he tells me in chaste Hindi how difficult it is for the people to live on the footpaths. I ask him what do they do during the rains? He said, they already make some ‘jugad’ (for those uninitiated ‘jugad’ is ‘setting’) and have got some or the other rooms where they can crowd in at nights.

We reach Arindam’s home. He gets down. I ask the driver to proceed along to Hajra. He takes me through College Street - unrecognisable amidst the closed shops and the empty footpaths, bumping along the tram tracks running right in the middle of the long road. Just ahead we join the Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road and suddenly I feel I am back to Mumbai at night. A lot of open shops, either quenching the hunger of a weary traveller or washing out the day’s dirt as they near the end of the day, make the similarity obvious.

Rafi Ahmed Kidwai road reminds me of Muhammed Ali road in Mumbai. The same predominantly Muslim appearance, those late running hotels and the hustle-bustle late into the night. Even the appear familiar and the air carrying the hustle bustle with it. Soon we cross the Park Street - dead offices and lonely roads. Some pimps at a corner, and some stray dogs. I am reminded of a couple of lines of a poem by Gopalprasad Dwivedi

Kalkatte ke foothpathon par, bhooki ganga geharati thi,

Bacchi mata ke hathon se, tukadon par bechi jati thi,

I am appalled at this reminiscence, for some unknown reason.

As I take the Theatre road, a few cars coming from Chowringhee suddenly break the eerie darkness, blinding me for a split second with their headlights. Camac Street is fast asleep - those with homes in their homes, those without on the footpath.

Finally I am onto Lansdowne road as I pass from Central Kolkata to South Kolkata. Again there is a hustle bustle; a few dhabas open, men loitering on the roads in a lungi, the torn short vest unable to hide their overgrown stomachs, a bidi in their mouth. The difference in the ambience can be felt. Lansdowne road is comforting.

I am home.

The whole journey took me around forty-five minutes, but the changes in the surroundings make me utterly romantic about it. The path along the forests till Sealdah, then the poverty and liveliness of Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road, the haunting feeling on Park Street, the silence of Camac street and finally the comfort of Lansdowne Road.

So many different faces of Kolkata, so little time to savour them.

At the end, did not really mind the late hours at work. Rather felt as if Kolkata was lending me company in my solitary travel.