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Published: February 5th 2006
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I dropped by Eden Gardens this morning, Calcutta's famous cricket ground, but was unable to get in. It looks more like a football stadium from the outside, and can apparently hold more than 90,000 fans.
I than had an argument at the Post Office when trying to post a postcard, as the man at the Enquiries desk was trying to tell me that it was too big for the Rs 8 postage and should be Rs 15. I told him that I had already sent many postcards of exactly the same size for Rs 8 and they had arrived safely, but he was adamant.
The GPO supposedly hides the site of the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta, though I couldn't see anything indicating that.
I followed this up with some bureaucratic nonsense at the rail reservation office. Despite there being many available clerks in the Indian section of the office, and with my reservation form present and correct, I was told that I had to go to the foreigners' section. Of course, this was full of people who either didn't know how to fill in the reservation form, or didn't speak much English, or hadn't researched their journey
so they were essentially using the reservation guy as an enquiries guy, or were trying to book 10 journeys at once, or were trying to get refunds for cancelling, or were trying to jump the queue, etc.
One hour later, when I reached the front of the queue, the guy asked me why on earth I had queued for so long for such a simple transaction. I showed admirable restraint in simply saying I had been wondering exactly the same thing.
I then walked over the Howrah Bridge to the other side of the Hooghly River. This is the world's largest cantilever bridge, and apparently the world's busiest too. Unfortunately photography on it is forbidden, which is enforced by a selection of lathi-wielding policemen. I got caught up in the steady flow of people heading east to west, and was reminded of crossing Brooklyn Bridge at a peak period.
I returned to the east bank via an uncrowded ferry then managed to get hopelessly lost until I stumbled across the hotel. I had lunch at a nearby cafe that was supposedly the originator of kathi rolls - essentially a kebab in a paratha - where I sat
at an outdoor table and was watched with interest by all the other patrons and passers-by, which made me think either I was eating it incorrectly or they didn't get many foreigners there.
For dinner, I decided I should try some traditional Bengali cuisine. It seems that this is mainly cooked in the home, so I had limited options in terms of suitable restaurants. I plumped for one called Aaheli, in the 4 star Peerless Hotel. It was another well-designed place, which I felt significantly underdressed for, but the staff treated me well. The menu was written in Bengali and in English phonetics, which may as well have been Greek as none of the saag, aloo, mattar, gobi, etc. that I'm used to seeing were present. Rather than ask for an English translation of the English phonetics, I asked if they had a fish dish that wouldn't blow my head off, which they successfully translated into bhekti maach diye phoolkopir with subasito basmoti - a delicate freshwater fish with cauliflower and rice. This actually turned out to be an enormous meal.
I don't know if I've been getting large portions recently, or if my stomach had gotten used
to smaller meals earlier in the trip, but not for the first time I felt completely stuffed and was forced to retire early to bed.
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karthikeyan
non-member comment
super ground
it is intertesting to watch eden garden very nice and good look