Inspite of all that,I simply love walking down that stretch of the road. Often,I take a detour and walk down Russel Street as well,main attraction being Hobby Center at one end and its rich platter of chocolates and fudgecakes. From there,I walk ,beside Trincas,Oxford,Flury's,Xaviers',Adventist Church to the cemetary and back.

My penchant for walk dates back to the days when Dadu used to wake me up at 4 in the morning and we used to for morning walks in Golf Green come rain or sun!. Be it summer or winter,he never failed to go for walks even if that meant being unable to wake up the lazy lump of his granddaughter.I've always loved walking.Be it at home,where I walk frantically round the table,to the balcony,in the rooms,in the kitchen,often in the corridors near the staircase,when I'm talking,eating or studying!So, naturally when I became a member of the USEFI library,I decided to walk a kilometer or two everyday.

I love Park Street.Love the quaint little shops on the footpath opposite Oxford,selling chocolates,cheap little trinklets,the mysterious shoddy lanes.I love drooling over the sight of Oxford,decked up in that all-familiar dim yellow light.The sight of KFC,Peter Cat and detest the fact that no smell of Chelo kebabs or sizzler or zinger burger waft out,unlike the roadside eateries. Moulin Rogue in its golden yellow glory.Barbeque which is now Flavors of China and confuse people who have left Kolkata long time back when Barbecue was Barbecue,and come back to discover the long-forgotten taste.

Park Street brings back hundreds of memories. Of Christmas.When we didn't have much money and still went to Flury's to buy a Christmas special Tootyfruity cake or a Farini cake.That was a treat we considered ourselves entitled to have,even if it burned a hole in our pocket!Then walking and admiring the lights,decorations,streamers in front of Trincas,Floriana or Waldorf with the band playing Christmas ballads,the street musicians in their rustic oldworld charm.There were less number of cars and more pedestrians on the streets,all walking,laughing,admiring the verve of life everywhere and awaiting with bated breath for the dong at 12 from St. Paul's Cathedral. I was small and never got to stay there till 12. But I used to hear stories form my uncles and brothers of how people would just break out into a mad frenzy of clappings,hugs and all that. The last Christmas I went to Park Street was years back, probably when I was in class 10 or something. And we sat in the car,facing Trincas for like an hour or two,stuck in a severe jam. It was so suffocating! I wished I could just get out of the goddamn car and walk,as I"ve always walked.

I remember the first day I went to USEFI. I thought that it was located somewhere in Park Street and had a very very wrong preconceived notion that I know the area quite well and would be able to figure out my way. Hehe! I forgot that I ,actually, have a very bad, real bad, road sense.I took a bus to Mullickbazaar and walked all the way to Park Street Metro Station only to find out that the easiest way to reach USEFI was to take the metro to Maidan! But the walk had woven its magic and I had once again fallen in love with Park Street and its oldworld charm.With BLue Fox,that still reminds me of Feluda and Chris Godwin.The cemetary gate,silent,solid,still. The tall,imposing offices,rows and rowsa of expensive boutiques standing side by side with roadside vendors selling plateful of hot parathas and chicken chow . The hole-in-the-wall restaurants,cafes et al. Xaviers' and the buzz around it. Sudder Street.Hippie para. And the long, long road that leads to Victoria Memorial and Race Course.

I even thought Victoria was somewhere on Park Street,my sense of direction is just so pathetic. The day I first walked all the way to Victoria,it was cloudy with the monsoon sky threatening to burst every now and then.I didn't carry an umbrella and wished fervently to go back.But insanity got the better of me.The first sight of Victoria against an overcast Kolkata sky is one of the many things that makes hate the idea of leaving the city years later.I will run out of words to descibe it and any sort of description would fall short of actually describing its ethereal beauty. Victoria Memorial, or rather the fairy on top always evokes a sense of irrepressible grief. Of sadness,pangs of separation. Sounds phony, eh? But true. I don't know what it does to me. I keep on staring at it,until my eyes grow smart.When the myriad colors are just sprayed across the sky during sunset,the Race Course looks beautiful.The shining silhoutte of the Vidyasagar Setu evokes a sense of craving in me,craving for what I don't know.It's as if, I want something desperately but can't figure out what.Or how.It's utterly ridiculously phony, I tell you.

I wish I could write a book on Park Street.The street musicians of my childhood.The Christmas ballads.The churchbells from St. Paul's. Tarotcard readers on the streets.Standing in front of KFC and sighing at the nearempty pockets.Oxford.Flury's.Trincas.The lightings of Floriana.Hobby Center.Breathing in the cool-happy-crazy air.That makes your insides go hollow and yet makes you so full and warm.Of basking in the citylights and walking on the streets of Kolkata.Of living and loving in this great great great city.