Randomized Thoughts

I had a chance to go to Kolkata for a business trip. I will not subsitute Chennai as home for any other place, but found Kolkata surprisingly close to home. I had a pleasant stay for almost a full day, though divided into two halves (like a football game). Things that strike you immediately as you land in Kolkata is that, by mistake your plane landed in a bus stand. Kolkata airport is mighty small, though city dwellers take pride in it. The second most striking distinction of Kolkata is the ever red, ever lasting herbal art.

This herbal art is the combination of saliva, paan and some mystery material that makes the mix of the organic colloid distinctively red. Visitors can treat their eyes with delights of this art in every sq. meter of the city. Historically its argued that the art form is not a native art of Kolkata and was introduced by immigrants from Orissa. In either case, people of Kolkata have adopted and refined this delightful art for generations. The proof of this can be seen in the dry spits in a bus, tram, train, taxi, food path,.. (wait didn't I just say it is in every sq. meter of the city). I bet many fathers and sons of this joyful city would compare and contrast their respective artful spits lying side-by-side (but separated by a generation in time). If you are in Kolkata you just cannot miss this.

My friend took the visiting friends to Victoria memorial. Not sure why it is called memorial, but for memory I have taken a photo of me showing middle finger at some english-walla's statue there. It surprisingly felt the right thing to do then. Anyways, the police constable in Kolkata wear whites. My theory is that, there is so much red spit on the road, that people could easily mistake red light of the traffic signal for yet another paan spit. But red light's color cannot be changed, as across the world the traffic signals have to be uniform. So the intellectuals (I mean the people) of the city changed the uniform of the  police. Ingenious in my opinion.

Then there was a short ride on a Victoria Tonga. I was so happy when I sat on the tonga. We just crossed a traffic signal, and I was waiving my hand to the people who were waiting for green lights. I surpringly thought it was right to waive my middle finger at them, but realized that the tonga was not the horse of a Ferrari. So I chose to add the rest of the 4 fingers for my own safety. My Kolkata friend was embarassed by my theatricals and chose to duck his face under a cheap tourist hat we had brought earlier. Alas the joy of the tonga ride ended there. As soon as we crossed the traffic signal, we were disturbed by the honks of all the filty old buses of the local transport. Even though I could see the trams, my head was in a state of trauma. I wanted to travel in trams when I went to Kolkata, but Tonga and bus honks was enough to make my head spin.

My Kolkata friend took us to a place near river Hugli called Lover's point. Its filthy and dirty and has some weird looking statues. I don't know how that place could be Lover's point. There was nothing that was remotely romantic about that place. My theory was that this could have been Lover's point 50 years ago (when I think the place would have been much more cleaner and without those weird statues), but was surprised to know that couples come there even today. So my alternate theory took to the fact that there were boats that resembled the Gondola of Venice. So people in love can take a ride on it. But still.. all the boatman had no shirt and had huge pot bellies. And curtains of the boat cabin was substituted with lungis. I mean how can a guy or a girl can feel romantic in that setup? But I guess Kolkata and its people continued to surprise me. I find that many girls in streets of Kolkata were beautiful, but was scared of feeling romantic by now. Caution dear reader, if you have a significant other from Kolkata, next time you go to Kolkata do not feel romantic. Else you will be riding on a filthy boat with the breeze of a dirty river hitting your face through a lungi.

Next we went to Park Street. By this time I got into the usual lazy mode of Kolkata. Any more activities proposed by my friends was followed by Cholbe na, Cholbe na from me. But there was no Cholbe na when it came to lunch and we had our lunch in a delightful place filled with lovely girls (though this part of the trip was not planned). We had to board our flight soon and so before leaving I wanted to contribute to the herbal art form of the city. So we tried paan. I was chewing it for close to 5 minutes periodically checking with my friend if the paan + saliva colloid in my mouth was anywhere close to red. To my disappointment it seems there is some mystery material, that only people of Kolkata use, to make the paan red. Visitors like me cannot be shared with the precious secret and so I had to leave the city with no contribution made to its culture. But surely I have taken some of its culture in form of Rosagullas and Ghanti (that my friend's mom gave me) back home.

Thanks to Keshav Modi & family for such a wonderful time in THE CITY OF JOY. Thanks to Munish for paying for everything I enjoyed in the city (I have no intention of repaying him though).