Your buildings,
Buildings high and rising,
Tower-like, V-shaped
with life pulsating in
Like I not,
Calcutta, O Calcutta,
Your industries and smells,
Toxic air spread around,
Smokes and fumes
Spiraling,
Traffic jams
And red signals,
The hours of wait
And restlessness,
Resulting in giddiness,
Vomiting tendency,
Calcutta, O Calcutta,
So busy, so fast,
So mechanical, so artificial,
With no time to think, no time to rest,
Always panting for work, work
And money,
Calcutta, O Calcutta city,
City not, mega city,
Metropolitan town,
Great, great town
Containing in the sea of people,
Over populous, over hazardous,
Commuters coming and going ever,
Pedestrians day and night,
Automobiles all day,
Life coming not to a halt,
Sirens wailingall the times,
Ambulances passing through,
O Calcutta, my Calcutta,
Take me not to,
Take me not,
Your hospitals fear I
A patient etherised upon the table,
Your lanes and bye-lanes,
Streets and sub-streets,
Flyovers confuse I,
Lifts frighten me often
In shutting and opening by them
And I going over to floors,
Storeys fearsome,
Buses, cars, autorickshaws
Frustrating me
In crossing the roads,
Calcutta, O Calcutta!