A Journey Through West Bengal

through my eyes

Hi there!

Thank you for joining me.

I hope you are doing well and your week has been fun.

That was the last sunset at my friend’s home in Kolkata before I set out on a journey towards the east.

A writer’s job is to figure out what is going on and tell others around her, too. And that is what I am doing here today.

As the visionary thinker Alain de Botton says,

Every great artist’s work amounts to an attempt to stir lethargic viewers into paying proper attention to a hitherto neglected aspect of reality.

Neither am I a great artist nor are you lethargic viewers. But all I want to do is to get your attention to the nature and beauty of things around us that we might overlook by habit or prejudice.

And the beauty is captured in these simple photographs I took from the car with a phone while on a journey from Kolkata to Siliguri through West Bengal. The pictures have captured a bit more or less than I thought I had framed, but whatever has come out seems exactly what I wanted.

Please note: I have not cut the larger frame to focus on one particular element because, without the paraphernalia, the protagonist doesn’t make any sense here. And so, I do think the images look much more clearer on a big screen instead of a phone.

Now come along.

On the road with bananas, this is how every journey begins. Just getting out of my friend’s apartment on the outskirts of Kolkata.

It took us a few hours just to cross Kolkata. One can never grow bored of the yellow taxis and the beautiful saris.

Let’s hold hands. Tram lines. Monginis bakery and Thumbs Up. And a crow on the traffic light. What do you see?

Still a long way to go and the night lamps have already come up. This is the first day of the journey that took us two and a half days. But we started at 3 pm on this day.

a television you wouldn’t have seen for a long time. A hotel from the past, Bardhman town, West Bengal. Our first night’s stay.

Looking at the world waking up through my ancient hotel room window. Bardhman town, before 6 am.

Cycle uncle, common scenes in West Bengal.

a beautiful mosque. The second day drive was through the small villages of rural Bengal because the highway had been blocked due to some ongoing construction work.

a woman washing clothes in the pond. I did not miss the highway at all.

airplane on the roof and a goat on the ground, for now.

Bicycles and Bengal.

a wall you may have never seen. Cow dung cakes being dried the way they have been since forever. Those are the prints of the hand of whosoever shaped them.

a bright blue gate in grey, like a monochrome

Food for the cows and goats. And what about the colourful auto-rickshaw?

a mother cow under the wires. Her calf is behind.

When did you come into my frame? Neither the little girl knows nor do I. Mud houses in West Bengal.

too big for her but this is the only one she got.

paddy until eternity, some harvested and some waiting to be picked up. Rice is the staple food of Bengal.

tied to an electric pole

What's going on? She asks me and I ask her. Where is she going with the purse?

saris of West Bengal

Hay stacks and goats. Rice isn’t only a staple of the people, its plant feed the animals, too.

the mother rules. The chief minister of West Bengal painted on a government office.

Another plane on the top of the house. Cement and paint advertisements seem natural next to it.

white feathers on green stalks of grass

Bengal’s kaach flower, as the locals call it. The same one as above.

Blankets and men, both have to be transported. When you see bright blankets all over the Indian highways, know that the winter is on its way.

If the sun had risen, it will set, too.

shepherds return home

wrapped in a red cloth, this tree isn’t going anywhere. The small neighbourhood confectionary shop on the right is a boon to all.

a train station, a train, and a banana tree. The last day of the journey.

If you didn’t see statues of the goddess Durga or Kali once in West Bengal, you didn’t visit the state.

incomplete.

potters at work

the journey that brought me to this balcony and this dragon cup

Did you like the vivid colours of West Bengal? Do you also think every life is beautiful?

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Thank you for going through this photo essay.

I hope the rest of your week is peaceful and bright.

Take good care of yourselves :)

Let me know what you think about this newsletter. Just press reply.

Yours,

Priyanka

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