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Published: February 12th 2006
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Kolkata - Life Insurance Building
Architecture is fascinating in this city. Kolkata, so far, is a pleasant disappointment to us; it does not live up to its advance notice of a chaotic city, down at the heels; at least not seen through the up beat way its people go about their lives.
It might be we can be sanguine about the city, because we chose to stay in a neighbourhood rather than centre town, and that we have not made it to downtown proper as yet; it could also be that our first day among the crowds was today, a Saturday.
Whatever; our arrival at the Howath train station was orderly; the environs conveyed a sense of ease. As we searched to find our bearings, people thoughtfully offered help: directions, language translations, no-hassle, pre-paid taxi arrangements. The drive, to our guest-house place of stay, took us across the Hooghly river, through the outskirts of the city and into our neighbourhood; passing, on the way, two herds of goats and a couple of horses, smack in the middle of the boulevard. We are told the animals are returning from the Maiden in town, a huge expanse of grassy recreation ground, where they graze all day, saving municipal mowing expenses.
From
Kolkata - Produce for Sale
Note the scale in the bottom left hand corner the start it, was clear to us that there is an active and engaged sidewalk life in Kolkata. Everything seems to be happening on the pavements up to around 10:00pm, when they seem to roll them up and go to bed, on them, for some people. People are taking baths on the pavements, they are ironing clothes on them, and they stand around eating meals that are cooked on them. Spices are being ground on the sidewalks; I gave up, joined-in and had my shoes cleaned and polished on them, as did Penelope. There are men typewriting correspondence for customers on the sidewalks. Every consumer item, that would be in a hardware, is there for the asking; as are all manner of produce, from the farms our train went by into the city. Folk buy flowers on the pavement that they place on the shrines at which they pray, at home and at work. Life, it seems, plays itself out on the pavements, some of which are even, many of which are rutted. Pedestrians and vehicles, including manual rickshaws, are left to battle it out on the streets. In turn, on the streets, right of way is determined by the
principle of the preponderance of traffic; if most of the traffic is in the direction of the red light, then, that flow has the right of way.
From where we are, downtown is accessible directly by metro, subway to some in the audience. We are at Kalighat and chose to go in the direction of the Dumdum terminal, I am not making this up, but to get off at Esplanade; I have never met an Esplanade I could not deal with, so this to me was a reasonable start. As we alighted, in the midday sun, I could feel a bit of dehydration coming on, so we found a restaurant that offered cold bottled water, it has got to be bottled, sat and drank two litres, while planning our assault on the Esplanade.
St Andrews Church, sky-pointing steeple in clear relief, stands before us. St. John's Church, reminiscent, in form, to St Martin-in-the-Fields, is around the corner, silently crumbling. On its grounds lies the founder of Kolkata , John Charnock, his remains in an octagonal mausoleum.
Before long, we were at what was Dalhousie Square in East India Company times. It is now BBD Bagh, in honour
Kolkata - Lyons Range
The Stock Exchange is on this street, quiet on a Saturday afternoon. of three freedom fighters Binoy, Badal and Dinesh who died in the vicinity, fighting for the national cause in 1930. Kolkata was the administrative headquarters of the East India Company , until, frustrated by resistance, passive and otherwise, they gave up in 1911 and left for Delhi. All the administrative buildings remain, some, quite the worst for wear. Unlike Mumbai, not a lot is being done to restore buildings of that epoch. A sign that this might change, as circumstances permit, is that the buildings have been declared heritage places. They are in that rock solid, city block long, rectangle style, often painted red, with galleries on all floors, usually four. More often than not, they speak to form and administrative function in every square foot of concrete.
The most imposing of them is the Writers Building, so named because it housed the clerical staff of the day; and clericals were known as writers in those times. They spent every waking moment at the office writing out forms in quintuplicate. In this case, the original writers also spent their sleeping moments here, as the building was the dormitory for bachelor expatriate writers of the day. The Writers Building signifies the birth of what became government beaucracy, with credit to the East India Company. The State Government of West Bengal, East Bengal is Bangladesh, inherited this building; and it is said that its employees also inherited the said propensity for forms.
We sauntered along Lyons Range where the Calcutta Stock Exchange stands, closed for the day
If not clothes horses, the women of Kolkata are either fashion plates or fashion spreads. They dress to the hilt. Every style of dress is on live display here, in full measure. They mix, they match; their stuff flows, it flutters; it is loose, it is wrapped. They wear shalwars, orhinis and sarees; as well as bodices with skirts or slacks; they wear them all with equal swish. Their colour schemes are of all seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter. Everyone, it seems, except perhaps the indigent, takes some time in the morning, to put it together. I know some other cities like this; but today, for me, is their day.
We have decided to have our main meal at lunch, in the hope, probably misguided, that we will be content with a light meal of fresh oranges in the evening. Lunch today, then, had starters of papadum, small red onions in spiced dust, shredded pickled ginger and peanuts. The main was Chicken Reshmi Marsala and Prawn Mali Curry with Chapati, served by an attendant whose son is attending a Canadian sponsored school
Post our late lunch, we took a walk around for exercise; and to get a feel of what obtains off the beaten track, in the lanes behind the main streets. People seem to be having more of a struggle with daily living, the street food is more basic, many sidewalk water pipes are broken and un-repaired; and the people who reclaim garbage for resale seem to have less work to do.
We concluded our walk about by lingering at Millennium Park, where the sun was setting, glowing, over Hooghly River. Idling, we watched a ferry weigh anchor for a trip to the Howarth side of the river, where our next train awaits us on Monday. I read a sign saying that Barrackpore was across the way; this, for those in the audience who appreciate knowing where their sister village is situated. Busying ourselves once more, we downloaded Penny's memory stick onto a CD, caught the subway back to Kalighat, taking note that there are seats reserved for ladies, in the Kolkata style of things. The trip ended with the purchase of 1.5 kilograms of oranges for dinner.
Vernon
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