26th November 2010 - The plane was about to land in 15 min and I was lost in my own thoughts. "Did I really make a good decision? Am I expecting too much?" and then I convince myself saying " What the heck! I have managed to touch the eastern part of India?". True! I was travelling with my husband to Ranchi and we had to travel via Kolkata. As usual , I was quite apprehensive when I was informed that I would be travelling with him to this new place ! "Kolkata!!!! Why Kolkata! I don't think I am really keen except for the Howrah Bridge!" . But when I landed at , Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport, I realised that I would not be regretting my decision.
As soon as I landed in the airport, a sense of nostalgic feeling and attachment developed with in me. The airport reminded me of the old Bangalore HAL airport and the Mumbai Airport. When you come out of those airports, you see lots of trees , and the soil smells great. The reason we get attached and feel evocative, is we have been seeing these places from our childhood and there we have that connection! It was 11 PM and we we were waiting for the cab. While my husband had gone to find the cab, I could hear a lot of birds chirping and tweeting. It is rare to hear the chirps in the night but felt good to hear it. We got a pre paid taxi ( must say it was definitely cheaper than Bangalore or Mumbai or Delhi) to drop us at the Inn and thus our journey began.
Kolkata indeed had different shades of colour. While travelling to the hotel, I started comparing different areas to different cities and town but then as we saw the areas, I was running out of places and adjectives and that was when I realised this city had its own beauty and was difficult to correlate with other places. This city is so different during the day and the night time. On reaching the room, I felt really sleepy but also had the sense of excitement that I was going to see a new place.
27th November 2010 - A new day!!! ( made me think of the song "A new day has come" by Celine Dion). The curtains were opened, and the view was amazing!! Hold on!! Before you start imagining the typical amazing view, with the greens and swimming pool types, this was a different scenery all together. We could see the main road, which was really wide and huge and right in front of us was an age old building. Or should I say an antique type of building which resembled a delicate fossil . I was amused to see this kind of shade on the first day of my stay. I imagined how actually these buildings would be. You touch it and CRASH! Funny Huh!!!
We freshened up and then decided to go down for the breakfast. There were lots of fruits, very fresh and juicy apart from the regular idly dosa, baked beans etc. Also they served the sweet curds which they called Mishti Dahi. I remember tasting this when I was pursuing my masters and it was more for khatta meetha , what we say in english, sweet and sour!!! I saw a lot of people preferring Idly Dosa compared to the other items. Yeah South Rocks as usual! Anyways after the breakfast, the real journey began.
As soon as we came out of the hotel, things changed. Typically when you are in Mumbai or Bangalore, and when coming out of the hotel, you see all posh and typical urban life. But it was unlike in Kolkata. The hotel is amidst the busy street. One can see the street shops in front of brand shops like Reebok, Woodlands etc, Since I was there for only 2 nights, I really could not explore these areas though wanted to. We hired a taxi and decided to visit tourist spot - Howrah Bridge.
Being Indians, when one remembers Howrah Bridge, what does one think of? If you are a student and a lover of history, you would recollect what was being taught in Social Studies or the History Class. If you are a film buff, then it would be impossible to forget the song " Mera Naam Chin Chin Chu" enacted by Helen from the movie "Howrah Bridge" and if one is the typical die hard film buff, then another famous movie "Yuva" directed by Mani Ratnam has also been shot there. I am belong to both these categories and any time prefer the former song over the latter. Thinking of Howrah Bridge gave me goose bumps and was keen to take a photo of me standing there. Also not every one knows that there is another name to this which is the "Rabindra Setu". I was flabbergasted to see the Hoogly river on the Bay of Bengal. But alas!! the dreaming of me standing on that bridge remained unfulfilled because of the weekend crowd and sadly lots of garbage. One can see that it was dominated by the lower middle class people and their slums. I don't know whether to express happiness or sadness or disappointment because irrespective of this people just live on and are happy or is what I am assuming? The major disappointment was when I saw how untidy it is and loads of garbage dump. I know a very close friend of mine would have broken down if she had seen this place and i really imagined how her reaction would be. Come to think of it, the famous, grand, distinguished HB, is a divider between the rich and the poor. Not that they don't belong or stay anywhere else, just that it is dominated by these people. This is what I felt when I visited the place.
Once you cross the Howrah Bridge, you pass through the Howrah station, which is supposedly one of the largest station in Asia and world ( I think!). The architecture of this station, closely resembles the Chennai Egmore Station. It is definitely one of the busiest streets in Kolkata and trust me, if you are a person who hates the traffic in humid weather, this is not for you!
After our visit to the Howrah Bridge, the second tourist spot was the famous Victoria Memorial which has the museum and the art gallery. I do love visiting museums but being a terribly moody character, I did not check out much inside as it was quite crowded being a weekend. The interior of the memorial is very very spacious and huge .The best part of this place is, they don't permit carrying plastic bags, in short, it is a plastic free zone , so you can definitely find it clean and neat ,and of course no photography permitted. It is located in the middle of a huge garden and one side you can view the trees and the other side, the lake. One feels peaceful when walking or relaxing by the lake side. The road in front of the VM is quite wide and there is the VM round about. But if you are thinking that the roads would be really awesome, please come down to the reality. Except for the fact that the roads are good, it is not as neat you would expect. On the sides of the VM, there are couple of tangos where you need to pay for the ride. Nope, I did not go for it. :)
From VM, we went to a relative's house which was located in Salt Lake City. The journey to that place was quite good as there was a chance to see the famous schools, the lovely fly overs. You can say the Salt Lake City is the new side of Kolkata where you can see lots of apartments and IT Tech Park there. Still lot of things coming up may be with in 5- 10 yrs.
It was evening by the time we reached the Park Street (where we stayed), and we had to rush for a dinner with a close of friend of ours. The night life in Kolkata is terrific and must also include that how much ever broad minded the bengalis are, they equally respect the tradition too. It was a beauty to see the wide roads lit. Sometimes we feel even two eyes are less to this. I mean it. And like I mentioned previously, there are so many shades and I feel these should be untouched because they bring out the beauty in the city. Anyways coming to our discussion, we waited in Park Street and after lots of confusion we decided to go and hog on an Authentic Bengali Food. Our friend Koel took us to 6 Ballygunje Place. This is located in a calm residential area. It is more of flats than the bungalows. I had the authentic bengali fish and chicked plus the veggie dishes. I am not a compulsive non veg eater but I love experimenting with food.
The areas we passed by some what resembles the MG Road in Bangalore. Also we saw the famous Haldirams shop and it was quite huge indeed. That reminds to tell you that apart from the Bengalis, you can lots of Marwadis here. These people came down to Kolkata eons back and started their business. Apart from the famous bengali sweets, Kolkata is also known for cotton saree. The next time I visit Kolkata, I will definitely post some pics and mention the names.
My favourite thing about Kolkata was the book stalls. After every few metres, you see a small book stall there and people buy lots of book. It was a pleasure to see this because this thing reminded me a lot about Bangalore. I felt like taking photos of every book street but the time was quite short. Eventually I entered an Oxford Book Store on the Park Street. The moment I entered the store, I was on high because of the books , they smelt really awesome. Sounds Crazy doesn't it. You will find some kind of speciality or talent in almost every Bengali, Either a good singer, dancer, theatre or studies. They are supposedly good in debating!!!
Anyways, post dinner, we dropped our friend at her house and went back to the hotel. The drive was really exciting and amazing. Weekend, people go out and party. The most funny sight on the road is the parking. You would be really amused and stunned to see how these people manage to park their cars.Trust me, you might think I am exaggerating but I am not. The gap between two cars would be just few inches and I wonder how they manage to park or remove it if the gap is less.
Oh!! Here is another thing you need to look out for... If you like going fast , then this is definitely for you. The cab drivers are quite rash in driving but amazing control. This equal to a roller coaster ride you have in any fun world and your heart beat almost stops for a mili secong. It would be stressful to drive our vehicles on those road. No wonder they say if you can drive in Kolkata you can drive in any part of the world.. It is true. I wish our Vijay Mallya can hire and train these guys for F1. Because they can definitely win hands down.
28th November 2010 - Another new day with mixed emotions.Why?? Cause, that was the day I would leaving this city with a heavy heart. Since we wanted to spend some more time out side, we skipped the breakfast buffet and visited the famous Flurrys. This is one of the oldest cafe in Kolkata located on the Park Street. It started on 1927 and still going on. This is definitely a must visit cafe if you love the authentic English breakfast ( when I say English, I mean the British types). We went there and had to wait for few minutes. This place always gets crowded. I could not conceal my excitement as I love the English Break fast next to the Indian Break fast. The English tea, with toast, egg omelet, Sausage.. Now I am feeling all the more hungry and drooling!! :) This place is also known for exotic pastries, cakes, sweets. Since I am not a sweet fan, I am sorry friends, I will not be able to explain how the taste is . But the ambience is definitely calm and relaxing. A perfect place to spend the Sunday morning.
Post the breakfast, we had one last place to visit, which is the Belur Math. It is one of the most enchanting temples in Belur and known for the serene, calm place. This was bought to existence by Sri Ramakrishna. Also this is the place where Swami Vivekananda stayed. The architecture is simple and very nice in its own way. It has the temple, the museum and the places where Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekanada Stayed. Visiting of weekends would not be as interesting as on weekdays as it gets a lot crowded. One gets to see a large lake beside the Math. It takes minimum of 45 min to max of 1 hr to reach this place. Photography prohibited.
By the time we reached the city limits, it was close to lunch . Also we had to check out of the room as we were travelling to Ranchi that evening. So once we reached the room, we did the packing and honestly, I felt incomplete as I felt some thing was missing. After checking out, we decided to go for lunch. On Saturdays and Sundays, the hotels usually get crowded. I must say Bengalis love eating but when it comes to outside food they prefer the non bengali cuisine as they feel that it cannot match the home food which is very true. The difference is that they are quite vocal about it. So we went to this place called One Step Up, which is a multi cuisine restaurant , as usual crowded. Vineeth and his friend took a thali while i ended up sharing the meal. It was quite tasty and definitely not the usual Punjabi Style. The Bengalis and the north eastern people prefer to use Mustard Oil than Refined Sun Flower oil or Groundnut oil. Probably which is why they have a good and smooth skin.
Though my stay in Kolkata was quite short, I really enjoyed the moments. People of different classes just minding their own lives and living up to it. Kolkata will definitely go a long way once there is a full fledged development and the labour is cheap. There are so many things that should not be touched or harmed as they bring out the exception and novel about the place. Not to forget, the tram in Kolkata is still being used. Only two cities had tram in our country. One of them being Kolkata and the other one being Mumbai. Unfortunately Mumbai does not have it while Kolkata maintains that to an extent. Bengalis are known to be quite talented and quite moody. But enjoy what ever they do and also complain equally. But no doubt Kolkata is indeed a city of joy because of the way the people live. Lot of famous personalities are from Bengal. Who can forget our Tagoreji ( though i am not a fan of his sangeet), SC Bose, Suchitra Sen etc. the list goes on.
I will definitely upload some pics when I visit Kolkata again so that you can actually picturize yourself in this. I am sure irrespective of the humid weather, the un tidy roads, I would definitely look forward to visiting this place again. Eastern India has its own beauty and culture.
Love you all.. Love you Kolkata
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