Wow.
It’s hard to express how much fun our trip to Calcutta was. Maybe the trip
turned out so great because I wasn’t really expecting much, but in any event we
had a grand ol’ time.
The
trip started a bit on a shaky note. Thursday we had work and then I rushed home
to pack before rushing to Hindi class, before rushing to Dolly-ji’s house, to
rush to the train station. Then, of course, the train was delayed. We found an
abandoned ticket office near our platform that looked like a set straight from
a zombie apocalypse movie and naturally decided to wait there for the train. It
was kind of creepy with bare electrical wires hanging down, half dismantled
waiting chairs, walls marked with graffiti, and a single, pale white light to
illuminate the room. To kill time we came up with the order in which we would
die in a zombie apocalypse and I think it went like this (the first person
mentioned is the first to die, the second the second to die, etc.):Stephen,
Alex, Chase, Jenny and Ben T (they die simultaneously), Rachel, Caleb,
Dolly-ji, Ben P, Evelyn. I was nodding in and out of sleep during this
discussion, but from what I remember the story goes that Stephen goes first
because he has a history of getting bitten/scratched by animals and wouldn’t
have it in him to kill something else. Alex goes next because he’s busy reading
a history book to try to figure out how to avoid the zombies when they break in
and kill him and then Chase dies helping everyone else escape. Jenny and Ben T
then decide to go and find help, but get killed en route. Rachel sacrifices
herself to save Caleb, but then Caleb is betrayed by Dolly-ji who first uses
him to help climb away from the zombies, but then doesn’t return the favor and
leaves him to be eaten. Once Ben and Evelyn realize what Dolly-ji did, however,
they stop helping her and she dies. Finally, Ben and Evelyn, connected by the
NIRMAN bond, are about to make it to safety when Ben gets bitten on the leg. In
the helicopter Ben starts changing into a zombie and Evelyn has to kill him to
save herself. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be flattered by my survival or
not, but hey I’ll take it if my group thinks I have the stuff to survive a
zombie attack. Coming up with the story was a ton of fun, but after a few hours
of waiting we were tired and grumpy and group morale was low. We ate Zours (the
most amazing candy ever created) and chocolate cookies as a pick-me-up at
around 11:30 PM and felt so much better. The train finally came sometime after
midnight and we all zonked out as soon as we hit our bunks.
We
arrived in Calcutta the next day around noon and the first thing that hit me
was the heat. Not to say it was blistering or anything, but I have a pretty low
tolerance for heat despite being from Arizona. We took cabs (yes, bright yellow
cabs as found in NYC except maybe in the 1950s or 1960s. I know next to nothing
about cars, but these taxis certainly weren’t from this century) and drove to
the YWCA Hostel where we were staying. The hostel was pretty bare bones, but its
location was hard to beat – it’s on Park Street within walking distance from
tons of attractions and right near the metro station. That’s right, a metro
station. Calcutta is still undeniably in India, but it’s got a distinctive
modern flare that’s lacking in Banaras. We took cabs, buses, auto-rickshaws,
trams, and the metro to get around the city, driving on what I would actually
be comfortable calling roads and breathing air that was free from noxious
burning trash and plumes of dust. Across from the YWCA was a KFC and down the
street an Au Bon Pain (both of which were frequented by our group to get our
Western food fix). Outside, couples walked freely and there were actually women
walking about the streets (even at night!). We all felt more in our comfort
zones than we have in months. The funny thing is that I think if we hadn’t been
living in Banaras for so long that we would have found Calcutta overwhelming
and challenging. I read that Calcutta is the second largest city in India (this
might be untrue now since the book I read it in is a few years old) and is a
crazy, bustling metropolis. There’s more hubbub in Calcutta than in Banaras
just because of its sheer size, but it’s a hubbub that we understand and grasp,
unlike a lot of the time in Varanasi. Caleb said that the first time he visited
Calcutta a few years ago he found it exhausting, whereas now it was
invigorating. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Banaras isn’t like everywhere
else in India and going to Calcutta was a nice reminder that there exists a
place in India not so terribly different from the cities we come from in the
US.
We did
so much in the short time we were in Calcutta I won’t be able to do it all
justice in a short blog post, but I’ll list the things we got to see and add
anecdotes when I think of them. In no particular order, we visited the Victoria
Memorial (outside of which we played on the grass for an hour or two doing
handstands, somersaults, playing tag, taking pictures), the New Market (where
we found a Jewish bakery and Chase and Jenny got makeovers), BBD Bhag (the old
commercial/political district from British colonial times), Khali Ghat (a
temple dedicated to Khali, an avatar of the goddess Shakti), the Mother Teresa
House, two Jewish synagogues (there used to be quite a few Baghdadi Jews living
in Calcutta), an Armenian church, a Portuguese church, Tagore’s House (the
house-turned-museum of the writer of the Indian national anthem), Nicco Park (a
local amusement park run by a Princeton alum), the flower market, the fish
market, and Old China Town. There’s so much I want to say about everything that
I hardly know where to begin.
I guess
I’ll start with food since that was a particular highlight of the trip.
Bangladesh is famous amongst Indians for its food and sweets and due to
Calcutta’s proximity to Bangladesh (the state it’s in is actually called West
Bengal), the food there is to die for. In addition to the Western food we got
at Au Bon Pain, KFC, and a semi-authentic Italian restaurant called Fire and
Ice, we got super tasty Bangladeshi street food and went for dim sum in China
Town one morning. The dim sum was SO GOOD. Stephen directed us in what things
we should try and verified that the food was almost as good as you could find
on a street corner in China. We ate pork buns, dumplings, fish soup, and the
Chinese equivalent of mochi, just to name a few. I ate so much and it was the
most fully full I’ve felt in months (fully full meaning full of substantial
things like meat rather than just carbs). I skipped lunch that day and didn’t
even regret it. Even though Bangladeshi food is pretty similar to that of
India, there is a certain nuance of flavor that made the food we had a nice
break from the mundane dal, subzi, roti (lentils, veggies/potatoes,
tortilla-things) that we eat every day in Banaras. Since Bangladesh is
predominately a Muslim country, there’s also a lot more meat in their dishes (a
definite plus for the meat-eaters on our trip).Bangladeshi sweets are also
particularly famous and we stopped for mishtidoi (sweet yogurt) whenever we saw
a sweet shop selling it. You can ask anyone in our group and they’ll tell you
that I’m not a huge fan of Indian sweets, but the Bangladeshi ones are actually
pretty good (even if I would still prefer a piece of cake made by myself or my
mom).
After
visiting the Khali temple Saturday morning we went to a flower market where
almost all of us bought flowers unnecessarily (but, hey, it was Valentine’s
Day). Ben T got flowers for a picture for Amber and all the girls got malas
(flower necklaces). Chase even got one of the giant malas that are normally
just worn during weddings. After the flower market we visited Nicco Park. It
was small, but we got to ride all of the rides for free and on most of them I
was so happy that I couldn’t stop laughing giddily. We met the Princeton alum
and his two daughters and also got a free meal at the food court there. It was
funny to see how much rowdier us Americans are at amusement parks than Indians.
That also might have been because we were so excited to be there and hyped up
on the thrill of Calcutta.
There
is typically a January slump in India BYP that people experience after coming
back from Rajasthan that I think our group mostly missed due to Saurabh’s
wedding and Dr. Bermann’s visit. I hope that after Calcutta there won’t be that
onset of homesickness since we got a little taste of life back home. In any
event, we have lots of things to look forward to like my birthday/Shivratri,
Holi, and Stephen and Chase’s birthdays throughout the coming months. It’s hard
to believe that we’ll be home in less than four months!
