2 Nights in Kolkata

We thought Thailand was a land of contrasts – until we arrived in Kolkata. This city of 14 million people has got to be the poorest city we’ve ever landed in. Crowded and dirty, there were heart-breaking scenes of homeless women sleeping on the streets and children begging everywhere. The guidebook says that the British moved the capital of India to Delhi in 1911 “leaving Calcutta to rot” and it shows. The buildings are crumbling, the busses and trams look like they’re about to keel over and it feels like the city is being held together with duct tape. Even the airport feels like it has seen better days. Yet among all this poverty and deterioration, there are 5-star hotels and brand new shopping malls with valet parking.

For us, Kolkata is just a stop-over on our way to Darjeeling, so we booked the Hotel Trimoorti which is one of the few budget hotels available in the city. This is a relatively un-touristed city, so services are harder to find. We found a cybercafé, but WIFI doesn’t seem to exist anywhere. We couldn’t find a city map so we had to rely on our guidebook, which didn’t help much since there are virtually no street signs. There is plenty of street food available, but we weren’t brave enough to try any. Restaurants are harder to find, but the mall did have a nice food court. One thing Kolkata does have is plenty of taxis. My guess is that for every person who can afford a cab, there must be at least 20 cabbies fighting for their business. Every time we flagged a taxi, at least 5 other drivers would try to steal us away. And the metered fare? Usually about $1 or $2 within the city center (it was $5 from the airport to our hotel). And for that measly fare, the cabbie has to negotiate the most insane traffic we’ve ever seen. Plus everyone here honks – a lot – so there is this symphony of car horns blaring all day long, a constant sound texture that may take a while to get used to.

We hired a professional tour guide named Shanti Bhattacharya (98-3022-4803 or santi_bhatta@yahoo.co.in) for a day and it was the best $30 we spent since we left home. Shanti is a 75-year-old retired history teacher who was born and raised in Kolkata. His immense knowledge and sense of humor gave us great insight into Indian culture as we saw the city through his eyes. Although we only touched upon the highlights of Kolkata, the gems we did see were unbelievable. Since we arrived on the eve of Shri Saraswati Puja, one of West Bengal’s special holidays, the next day Shanti took us to see a centuries-old ritual -- the dumping of the Saraswati Puja into the Ganges River. We were told that over 40,000 statues would be dumped into the river by the end of the day. Another highlight was a visit to the dusty private home of Raja Rajendra Mullick Bahadur’s family, also known as the “marble palace.” Like the rest of the city, this “palace” was badly in need of some care, but it was fun to walk through haunted rooms and halls jam packed with art and antiques collected from all over the world.

The most interesting tidbit that Shanti offered was an explanation of why Kolkata’s economy has collapsed. Since the communist party has been in power, tenants have stopped paying rent. Landlords can’t kick out the tenants because of the corrupt court system. And without income, landlords can’t do any repairs or pay taxes. With no tax income, the government has no money for services and repairs, which explains the decrepit scenes we’re seeing city-wide.

Overall, Kolkata was a little overwhelming for us, so we re-booked our trains tickets and cut our stay short. Next, we’re headed north towards Darjeeling. Unfortunately, today’s front page newspaper headline told of new political unrest in “the hills” so we’re not sure we’ll even be able to get to Darjeeling.

Footnote: Kolkata time is GMT plus 5.5 hours. And I thought all time zones jumped by one hour, so that extra 30 minutes threw me for a loop. So why is this very critical piece of information kept a secret? This is India, I guess.

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