Kolkata or Calcutta... What may be the spelling a picture comes to mind of old buildings in numerous gullies. Tea shops. People drinking cups of tea in earthen pots (called "bhad" locally) with toasts of square size breads 3 rupees per piece. The scattered fruit vendors urging you to buy some of their sellables.
Dusty lanes, where people swarm for many tasks. Garbage and cow dung smell will greet you wherever you go. Flyovers and bridges criss cross the straight roads. Busy streets with mad rush of crowd, hawkers selling lemon and orange chocolates, pens and peeled amla flakes both raw and dried announcing the many good effects it will confer to your digestive system, look normal Rickshaw pullers, autos and taxis compete with each other for tiny bits of space in the road to speed away towards destination of their hirers.
Old buses coughing and squeezing run towards their goals while shaking like bharatnatyam dancers with every bone in their metal framework. Sometimes I feel every organ in my belly quarrelling with each other while traveling in such odd buses and end up exuding the precious food material given to me by Kakima, my dearest land lady.
Every morning there is heavy rush to reach office whether it is in Camac Street or MG road or Salt Lake. There is competition between buses. You have to sit and watch horrified the body shaking buses trying to outrun each other. You can sit in the front seat with the auto wallah and two unknown people and nobody with raise a eyebrow to you ( I have seen two of my malayali friend's eyes reaching middle of their forehead who watched me sitting like this).
Spent some more time in roads. You will see the double decker buses or you can stare at the city from a seat of famous or ill famous (from traffic slowing angle) trams. If you are a book lover go to College street, you will feel like being in heaven despite the crowd and don't forget to have some mudhi masla or jhal mudhi there. It is available in its best form there My discovery!
The average bengali babus will be seen smoking a cigarette while standing in the bus stop or running behind a bus with his bag or bargaining for some object in a side street. His neat-ironed tucked in shirt groaning with every new crease resulted from people entering hurriedly in the bus or somebody pushing from behind. If you feel like going underground, Metro is there to greet you with its neat and timely smile every 10 minutes. You have the option to reach your destination in 15 minutes or 1 hour 15 minutes in this city.
If you are interested in history, Indian Museum, Belur math museum, Mahalanonis museum, the museum of Victoria Memorial and many more will welcome you with open arms. You can learn as well as complete your sight seeing.
Love religious places. Kalighat, Belur math, Birla and Dakhineshwar temple are must go places. Want some fun with your kids. Aquatica, Nicco park and Science city are there. You will have a great field day with children. Want a quite evening just sit in front of the dancing colorful water spring of science city and listen the old instrumentals. You will never know when it is time to leave.
Want to do some shopping. Go to Esplanade. You will get everything in every possible range there. Bada bazar is good for bulk buying, if you know where to get the thing or else take some experienced person with you. Sadly today also you can spot men-pulled rickshaws there. It seems part of Kolkata is refusing to accept technology boom. Hathi bagan is good for cutlery and pavement shopping. If you have a lot of money and don't know how to burn it and then head for City Center, Salt lake or the shops of Park Street. You will get rid of your money as well as buy many fashoinable things.
Do not forget to visit some of the the sweet shops and taste the rasogullahs, sandesh and misti doi (sweet curd). Not eager for too much sweetness then go for a combo item of sour curd and bundi. It is a discovery of mine. Much lower in calories in comparison with the previous items and suits well to the guilty calorie conscious minds. You can also try the samosas, crisp fish fries and kathi rolls if nonvegetarian.
Go to a friend's house over lunch or dinner. You will get enough to eat starting from Sukhto, Alu bhaja, Ilish macher jhal (Hilsa fish curry), Kosha mangsho (Fried chicken/mutton) to sweet chuttney, small square sized pappads and sweets at the end.
Moreover want a feel of the city, switch on FM radio and tune to a bengali channel. With a little bit of luck, you can hear some good Bengali singers like Nachiketa, Silajeet and Rupankar. Whether it is Neelanjana or Priyatama or Phiriye dao you are going to enjoy it.
The best will be to attend a bangla band programme. Numerous hippy youngsters wearing odd costumes and ear-rings, pony tails and faded jeans with numerous cuts here and there tingling their guitars with all might with the drum beats and screaming their guts out over some indianized western song with perfectly broken sur and taal. But you will feel like back to your teenhood and no doubt that by the third song you will also start grooving with throbbing temples all excited and fresh.
At the end do not forget to take a stroll in the history famous Howrah Bridge. The gentle air coming from the river Ganga will blow your hair from its arranged precision and caress you like a mother of small sweet child. This is city Kolkata in my mind.
Despite my grammatically not correct pronunciations, hatred towards buses and incapability to read Bengali script, I am in love with this city, What is there in being Bengali or not, as long as you understand the people and feel like one of them. I say it is my Kolkata like the everyday Bengali says "Amar Kolkata".
PS: Not to forget the ferry rides of Kolkata. You can go directly from Howarh to Bagbajar Ghat, from where all places of North Kolkata are accessible. The rides are always fabulous whether taken in morning or noon or evening. Vast stretch of water staring you with its blue eyes and mesmerizing you. To my dismay I just dream it blue, but in reality it is dusty gray due to pollution. Another boat ride, I have taken many times is from Dakhineswar ghat to Belur Math. Say it coincidence or destiny, till date I have always taken this ride with the setting sun. The colors, the beauty and the harmony... I have no words to explain it. Better you feel it when next time visit Kolkata.
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