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Published: February 5th 2006
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I discovered this morning that the wall-to-wall curtains in my room don't conceal wall-to-wall windows but in fact hide a wall-to-wall wall, with just a small opaque window above the A/C unit to let in some light.
After breakfast, I found the cheapest Internet so far in India (a mere Rs 15 per hour).
First port of call for the day was the Victoria Memorial, a large and imposing structure in white marble, set in groomed grounds on the east side of the Maidan. It was built at the beginning of the last century to commemorate Queen Victoria's death. Inside, there is now a museum containing exhibits and information about the development of Calcutta as a city, as well as Bengali cultural highlights. Though the architecture of the building contains both European and Moghul influences, it wouldn't have looked out of place in London.
Nearby is St Paul's Cathedral, a large though rather plain structure in Gothic style.
Next stop was Park Street Cemetery, which was completely inaccurately represented on the RG map, resulting in me exploring a significantly wider area of Calcutta than I'd intended. The cemetery turned out to be predominantly full of tombs commemorating
British luminaries from previous centuries, none of whose names I recognised.
From my wanderings today, Calcutta has shot into top spot in the league table for Best Indian Metropolitan Area. Though I still haven't seen Chennai or Mumbai, Delhi is fourth and bottom, and it will take a truly superhuman effort for it to be shifted out of that position.
In the evening, I felt the urge for some Japanese food, so I went to a recommended (and rather upmarket) place called Jongs, that claimed to include Japanese amongst their pan-Asian menu. Not for the first time, my Cal T-shirt was the source of confusion to people who actually do or did attend Berkeley - this time, a group of Buddhist scholars who were visiting all places in India that Buddha had visited (I had seen them in Bodhgaya too). Though I owned up immediately to being an impostor, they still thought I was a student, which hopefully was based purely on my scruffy clothing rather than any indications from my conversation that I was still in my late teens/early 20s.
The interior of the restaurant was the best I've seen here, and the wait staff were
all dressed smartly in uniform. There appeared to be only 1 table for singletons, tucked away in the corner away from everyone else. Unfortunately there was a pitifully small Japanese selection on the menu, so I ended up with Chinese. Afterwards, I asked for some green tea but was told that the kitchen staff were too busy preparing food to be able to provide tea or coffee. And to make this statement look even more suspicious than it already was, a couple of minutes later I was asked if I'd mind leaving because someone sitting at the bar had reserved the table. I made my displeasure clear by the trifling tip that I left, though this was by far my most expensive meal yet - over Rs 800, which is nearly $20.
The Sunset Bar at the Lytton Hotel is supposedly a traveller hangout, so I popped in for a beer. Needless to say, the place was virtually empty, so I ended up sitting at the bar watching current hit Bollywood songs on TV for the duration of a Kingfisher. One small consolation was that they played some ELO over the sound system.
(Please note that I have
Modes of transport
Tram, bus, auto (and legs) been using "Calcutta" to refer to my current location rather than its official name "Kolkata" simply to avoid confusion, rather than trying to encourage a return to its Anglicised name.)
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