I look around me and see the complacent smiles and open,eager eyes which bereft of issues awaken suddenly to life if but the passenger next to you in his hurry to occupy a seat has shoved you.....

I look around me and see the gobs of spit,beetle stained walls and urine-stinking corners and over-flowing drains.....

I look around me and take in the noxious black smoke,smell of rotting fish and cauliflowers...

I look around me and wade in ankle-deep slush to reach my place of work....

But all is not lost,I say,the metro is there,new fly-overs coming up,shopping malls on the anvil,skycrapers so tall,I have to crane my neck for the eyes to rest on them.....

All is not lost,I say,lovers meet and hold hands...and fight and make up...

All is not lost,I say,for Buddho has made so many promises,signed so many MOU"s,wooed so many investors--they are all making a beeline for Bengal...the NANO is here despite Mamata...

But now it seems,all is indeed lost--the city is dying slowly and nobody bats an eyelid even!!A city"s pride is in its heritage...what else does a city have?The pride of Calcutta-the Calcutta Book Fair,more than three decades old will for the first time since it started in 1976 will not be held this year because it poses a threat to the environment---Mark ye!!the exhaust from centuries old buses does not!!

So a city"s ethos,wherein its heart lay is being wiped off....book-loving Calcuttans,the time has come to pay the price for cocking a snook at the environment,plundering and raping it at will.... Perhaps the time has come to go back to our origins...Return to the Forests.....

The ban on the Book Fair marks the beginning of the end-------Watch the Slow Demise of this City.....