Return to Innocence

This is the very spot where a little boy of ten, on a break from school, would be sitting next to his mother in the late summer evenings, gazing at the Hoogly River and the boats that ferried people from one bank to the other. The boy would sometime sketch in his drawing book, while his mother would sit silently watching the trees, river and the birds as they appeared on the sheet in various shades of gray. After every hour a rumbling sound would come from the direction of the bridge, and it would grow louder by the seconds. The boy would jump up to his feet to look at the distant giant structure of steel and concrete that stood against the twilight sky with shining semi-circular arches. It resounded with the vibrations of the passing train which would linger on for some more time after the serpent had made its way across the river. And then the boy would eagerly wait for the candy peddler to arrive with his colorful assortment in glass jars. He would slowly cuddle up to his mother with a shy smile, and she would look into those sparkling innocent eyes, smile secretly, and with a seeming reluctance buy him a candy after adding a warning about tooth decay. They would sit on the bench, right next to the stairs that went down and disappeared under water. The stairs had always been an enigma to the boy. During high tide the river would slowly lap up the stairs, one by one, while at the time of ebb tide the river would seem to withdraw itself remorsefully, revealing more and more of that never-ending flight of stairs. Around seven, the local brewery’s daily discharge into the river would render an unpleasant smell to the moist breeze; it smelled like fermented jaggery, and so the boy and his mother would head for their home, a five minutes walk from the river bank.

That boy was me, some thirty years ago. After spending many years in a foreign country, today I have come back with the hope of reliving some of my childhood memories. But presently I find myself looking around desperately searching for something familiar, something that has survived the passage of time. The river seems to have shrunk, and the water is quite turbid. Our old house is gone; we had sold it off long ago when we shifted to the city of Calcutta, and now in its place stands some ugly high rise flats, with dingy ‘budget’ apartments especially designed for the middle class income group to afford. The quiet river bank that I had loved as a child seems to have lost its serenity; it is now the location for a bustling fish market. The old bridge with its semicircular arches has also been torn down and replaced with a suspension bridge to cater to the increased traffic. The boats have been replaced with streamers, and the staircases that had fascinated me as a child with its never-ending flight of stairs have now become a part of a ferry dock. Only the brewery is still there, and they seem to have increased their production as the air has the repulsive smell of fermented jaggery even during the day.

Sitting at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia in the late summer evenings, I had often lost myself in the scenes from childhood that I have been carrying with me, and nurtured the secret desire to come back to visit this place. My ten year old daughter would notice me brooding over something and nudge me to play with her or tell her stories. She is good at inventing games. I guess all children are. She would sometimes chase the birds and tire out herself and then retire to watch the US battleships anchored on the opposite bank of the Delaware River. And when a commuter train bound for Camden would appear on the Ben Franklin Bridge, filling the air with a heavy rumble, she would jump up to catch a glimpse of it. And at these moments, I feel a surge of affection for my little daughter and I tell her stories of the bridge, the river, the candy seller, the stairs and the little boy and his mother.

I now hear my daughter coming from behind and I turn around.

“Papa, look there is a train on the bridge.”

A shiny serpent is slithering across the bridge. I now think my trip to relive my childhood memories hasn’t gone waste; I have finally found the joy that I came looking for, I am seeing it in her eyes.

“And here was the bench where your Grandma and I used to sit….and over there you can see the stairs I told you about, it goes real deep into the water…..and in place of this new bridge that you see now used to be a bridge with semi-circular arches…..”