Small Town Rules

When the signal turned orange, I slowed down on my Scooty, making the middle-aged man on the bike come to a startled stop next to me. More people started giving me looks when I halted. Two cars ran the red, and after a few bizarre seconds of shooting wary looks at me, most of the vehicles moved on. I was the only one standing at the red light. This was Allahabad in 2016. I was in college, and the first of the traffic signals had just started functioning. However, it still took a year, with threats of penalties and huge fines, and then some, to get more people to follow the traffic rules. 

The last time I went home was in September of 2023. Baadi kobe aashbi? (When will you come home?) This phrase comes up in every conversation I have with my grandmother. Home is Allahabad, where the streetlights are often bigger than the roads, where people talk with a lilt, which is at the same time intimidating and oddly endearing. Where more "non-Bengalis" participate in the annual Durga Pujo than Bengalis and where you can never really get lost.

Oscillating between work and an independent life in a big city has somewhat distanced me from my roots. Or so my family thinks. "You've outgrown us," my aunt tells me. I feel like the city is agreeing with her, too. But maybe it's the other way around. The chasm of unfamiliarity seems to increase every time I visit now—a new flyover, trendy cafés, and better-functioning traffic signals. Things you would think are essentials for any city are only now taking shape in my small but steadily gathering hometown. 

The town is being stretched into a mega city, and all I seem to remember are the everyday minutiae that make it home for me.

Walk through the feet-crushingly narrow bylanes of the old town area and you will find the best food. The one-of-a-kind masala samosas only found here, the kachoris lathered in desi ghee with an exterior so perfectly flaky you'll lose count of your helpings. Go on a little further and you will have to find your bargaining voice to haggle with the many shopkeepers in Chowk's verandah of trinkets and titbits. While the old markets can be maze-like, there is one place which is the confluence of the old and new, where the twirls of history greet you in various forms: Civil Lines, the heart of the small town, draped with all the trappings of big cities. You will find the new crop of cafés and the two malls here, along with the oldest paan shops and patisseries. 

At the Chandra Shekhar Azad Park, on your night walks, if you come across a young couple huddled on a lone bench in the shadows, leave them be. In a small town, privacy is a concept alien to the masses. You love in the dark if you want to step out respectfully in the light here. As a teenager in 2010 you could take a quick walk with your friends around the neighbourhood, reach the corner store, and think about buying a pack of smokes. But you couldn't because everyone knew everyone. The store owner knew what your grandfather had for lunch based on what he bought from there. The ladies buying a carton of eggs and milk would probably arrive at your house in the evening with a plate of pudding. Things haven't changed much but kids have become more innovative, working around the obvious curbs. The old houses and their low, naked roofs were the places for young couples to rendezvous.

In summer, on sheets of white, there will be mangoes spread out on rooftops for pickling. During the winter they will be replaced by people soaking up the sun. Now, most of those roofs have become 20-storey terraces, and the meetups happen over coffee away from your neighbourhood.

If you ever visit this holy city, the events that make it so shouldn't be the time to go. Visit it when nobody thinks of visiting Allahabad. End of November, after Diwali has cleansed out the mosquitoes and the air is chilly. When you hear vendors call out with enticing descriptors for pink guavas, their carts overflowing with the fruit and the air thick with its scent. When your winter-chapped lips can only be warmed with a cup of coffee at the Indian Coffee House. Or when the thought of going to El Chico for the best pastry in town requires some planning, lest you run into an ex or the relative you've been dodging.

People watching and eavesdropping. If you want to know the pulse of the city, you have to see it through the eyes of the people who call it home. You don't visit Allahabad with plans for a glittery vacation, Instagrammable pictures, and unreachable comforts. You let the town gobble you up so you can know how it feels to be on the inside. It's not where travellers go on holiday; it's where wanderers learn to find themselves. Nobody can get lost in Allahabad.

Last year, on my way to the only bookstore in town in Civil Lines, I stopped at the red light, a tenacious big-city habit. The timer seemed endless and after 40 or so seconds, I glimpsed another girl in a car on my right. A look of understanding, nostalgia, and mischief mingled together, and before the light could turn green, we both jumped it. I didn't find the magazine I was looking for at the bookstore and my father wasn't pleased with my minor misdemeanour, but after years, I was back home.