Calcutta Circa 11th Nov 2015

Debarun Sarkar

Debarun Sarkar sleeps, eats, reads, smokes, drinks, labors and occasionally writes and submits them.

Note: The following pictures were found distributed across various local intranets. The owners of the pictures remain untraceable. Blame it on myth.
D had lately gotten tired of C.
C for city.
C for Calcutta.
C for caution.

Photography is something he had always been unconcerned about.
The saturation of the visual media around him bothered him.
Law too was something he had always been bad at.
He wondered if studying to be a lawyer might have led his life down a better path.
Prohibition signs around C bothered him. Hence, he wondered if these prohibitions had legal consequences, repercussions…

He came to the conclusion hence, that trial and error would be the best way to verify the extent, consequences, validity and the reach of L.
L for law.
L for logic.


He started counting the transgressions, slowly.
He started counting things, objects, people, places, signs.
D started counting T.
T for traces.
T for trains.
T for time.
T for transgression.
He started counting C.
C for cameras.

People around had lately, for the past couple of months and years, started referring to D as a paranoiac, a schizophrenic.
They suggested the usual routine of psychiatry, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy.
The P-routine.

Eventually he started counting B.
B for buses.
C for cities.
D for doors.
E for entries.
E for exits.
_ for ____

M for myths.
“Let’s talk about myths.”
Myths for the new obsession.
No, not the banal myths that every lane in the city threw up, but the grand paranoiac myth, where C met D, where D met C, CD, DC.

D was taking pictures.
That’s how he was counting.
A picture of a P, P for police is missing in the set.
The police approached D.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m taking pictures. In the name of art.”
“You have no right to take my picture.”
“Oh, is that so, sir? I’m sorry I wasn’t aware of that. I shall refrain from now on. I’m bad at law.”
“Go take pictures of statues and people, it’s a beautiful day.”
“I’m not a tourist, sir.”
“Give me the phone, let me delete the photos.”
“Yes, sir. Certainly.”
“Don’t take people’s photos without asking them.”
“We don’t like it either, sir, when you take our photos without our permission.”

Run.
Test the limits of law.
Distributed, networked, photography.

Move.
Please, tell us the law.
Distributed networked photography.

M for myth.
M for metro.
M for metropolitan.
M for metropolis.
M for ____

***