Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) is essentially the polar opposite of Chennai. It's green, walkable, full of culture and interesting history, considered the cuisine capital of India and is even a bit cooler to boot. So much excitement I never even considered a visit to a mall or cinema!
We had a lengthy train ride from Puri but we were in comfy seats and were constantly plied with food included in the fare. Jonny-the-Scouser and I for some reason had seats well apart from our comrades so we amused ourselves by watching Tom Hardy's Kray bros film, Legend. Good entertainment, but rather confusing when one is immersed in the 1960s East End to look up and see dozens of people hanging out of passing trains.
Our arrival into Howrah station sadly did not signal an opportunity to jump straight into the city. Leaving the others standing guard over a pile of bags, Laura and I joined the pre-paid taxi queue which took us over an hour to move to the front of. Auto-rickshaws (Tuk-Tuks) aren't allowed into the city centre, so instead the transport of choice are big yellow Ambassador cabs, strongly reminiscent of New York. We crossed the Howrah Bridge, purportedly the world's busiest, and its likeness to the Queensboro (described so eloquently in The Great Gatsby) maintained the similarity. The city is even designed on a grid system and has a massive long park running through the middle of it!
After finally making it to our lovely hotel (miraculously not killing anyone on the way, hard as our driver tried), we set out for the Maidan Park. We missed the opening hours of the Victoria Memorial but enjoyed strolling the grounds, just a small fraction of the enormous park. For once, no one looked twice at us, and we weren't remotely conspicuous as a hand-holding couple. In fact, I think we were in a minority of the chaste, as every tree and bush seemed to be providing shelter for heavily snogging couples. As dusk fell, we decided to pop into St Paul's Cathedral, which looks a bit more like Canterbury. I didn't get to look round it much because within a few moments of entering, a young man came up to us with the usual introduction of "HelloWhichCountry?" and upon hearing England, his next question to me was "I have your phone number?" It's a real shame that I "don't have a phone" because I was then treated to the story of how he used to be a drug addict but is DEFINITELY clean now (not sure I believe that, looking at his eyes) and is studying hotel management and wants to come to London. By the time we finally extracted ourselves from him to try look at the architecture a bit, the church was closed and we were shooed out. 
As it was the last night of that leg of the trip (meaning we were losing Hannah and Caroline), we had a group outing, taking the Metro (the network consists of only 1 line, but it's clean and reliable) to the swank Park St area for a fabulous meal at the delightfully named Peter Cat restaurant. Their special, the Chelo Kebab, is deservedly famous, but necessitated walking home so as not to slip into a food coma.
At breakfast the next morning we met one of the new travellers of the last leg of the trip, Bex from Kent. Patrick and I adopted her for the day and the three of us walked miles together, getting to know each other and bonding over a shared hatred of southeastern rail. Our first stop was the colonialism-on-steroids behemoth that is the Victoria Memorial. I'd read a description comparing it to "Taj Mahal meets US Capitol," which I can't better. In addition to a nice dome, there was a photography exhibition of Gandhi, and one of the better museums I've seen in India, much of which focussed on various social reformers, satirists and artists of the 19th and 18th centuries. The real reason to visit however is a rather camp statue of King George V, who we renamed Sassy Britches due to a very, well, sassy twist of the hip that's been captured for prosperity in marble. Sadly cameras are strictly prohibited inside and searching 15 pages of google images has revealed nothing. We spent the next few hours wandering far and wide, seeing more of Maidan Park, stuffing our faces with Kati rolls from a street stall, and feeling like we were back in London when we walked through Park St Cemetery. Back at the hotel, we met the last 2 group members - Su Chi and Remy - and went out for another group meal at The Great Booze Story. Seemed like a promising establishment at first, but quickly proved too loud and dark to chat much, and also pretty incompetent at running a kitchen, since everyone was long long done with their meals (some had even paid up and left), when I was still waiting for any sign of my burrito (not a famously complicated dish).
I was up at 5.30am Wednesday morning for a really special tour of the city. The Rs.2100 price tag nearly put me off (and in fact Patrick decided to catch up on sleep instead), but it was genuinely worth it for nearly 4 hours spent with Manjit, who grew up in the neighbourhoods we visited. He seemed to know everyone we passed, and had unfettered access to a Buddhist monastery, Zoroastrian fire temple, Chinese temple, Jewish synagogue, and a multitude of markets. We spent hours winding through back roads of the "grey" areas (ie, immigrants who are neither black nor white), watching the city wake up, and trying a multitude of foods from street vendors. Manjit is clearly a popular character on these streets and our little group was happily received everywhere. It never felt like we were intruding on people's lives, just observing and interacting. The men at work were always happy to have their photo taken (I asked each person, as having a camera shoved in my face without asking - which happens all too often in India - is a massive pet peeve of mine, and I extend the courtesy of a request before removing my lenscap to take a portrait). As well as leading tours, Manjit is a successful photographer in his own right, and articles featuring his work have featured in several major British newspapers. His English is impeccable and he loved making jokes and puns, the sure sign of fluency. As Patrick and I missed out on tours of Delhi and Mumbai, I was really happy I decided to see a side of Kolkata I never would have found on my own. Due to the early start, the rest of the day was fairly subdued before our 10pm train.
Patrick, Hannah, Bex, Emily and I decided to join forces for a trip to the Botanical Gardens (actually the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden), about 10km away across the river. Though Tuk-Tuk drivers will happily squeeze 5 passengers into their little vehicles, the huge Ambassador vehicles will only take 4, so the girls jumped in one cab, and we hailed another a few minutes behind. Contrary to literally every other taxi ride we've had in India, the driver used the meter without argument, so the long journey only cost Rs.107. We waited at the gardens entrance for the girls for a while, then decided they must have either been dropped off at another gate, or have gone on ahead to the Great Banyan Tree, which was the reason for our visit, so Patrick and I decided to wade in, in the hopes of running into the others. The gardens are massive and include many different paths, with difficult to read signs pointing the way to various points of interest. What should have been a fairly direct path to the Banyan became a circuit around most of the park- which was lovely! And the tree at the end was truly spectacular. At first glance, it appears that you're in front of a regular forest, till a closer look reveals all the "trees" are actually all connected. It's about 200 years old (the main trunk died after a lightening strike in 1925) and covers around 4 acres and photos absolutely don't do it justice. (We later discovered the girls' driver had dropped them off in a different part of the city, another driver tried to severely rip them off, and a mob formed to shame the dodgy driver- they never did make it to the gardens, but had a great story to tell once they arrived back at the hotel- but we're sad we didn't get to say bye to Hannah).
We found a taxi to take us back to the city, had another Kati roll each, broke down and visited a bookstore (in which Patrick made friends with a guy very keen on sharing his meandering philosophies), and went back to the hotel to grab our bags in preparation for the overnight train to Siliguri.
Seeing so much of Kolkata really challenged the expectations I had about this city, which I think still suffers from very outdated stereotypes. However, our trip did end on two very sombre notes. Shortly before leaving the city, we learned about a bridge collapse, in the area we'd explored during the photography tour. It was packed with people early in the morning, so it's horrendous to think how full of people the area must have been when the accident occurred in the afternoon. Reading the newspaper the next morning, we learned that the construction company (blacklisted by other states, but hired by West Bengal), was likely rushing the job as they were under pressure to get the flyover completed ASAP, as the project was years behind. Naturally, a great deal of finger pointing has ensued, with the company even calling it an "act of God."
Due to the accident, some roads were closed and the taxi had to take a fairly circuitous route to the train station, including through many slums built up along the edge of the railway lines. A moment's glimpse from a moving taxi just shows grim desperation, but a longer look shows more of the spirit that keeps the community going- entrepreneurship, smiles, multi-level homes, even a kid sat on a pile of rubbish watching a video on his smart phone. Like it struck me visiting the villages, we see but a sliver of life as we hop about the globe, but how many of these people will escape life in the slums? I hope many will- though I've never seen past Calcutta, the image of blinding poverty everywhere is no longer true, and I hope poverty continues to decrease so that so many do not have to live surrounded by rubbish and no access to safe water. It was a sobering final view of a city that we spent a short amount of time in.
Next stop- night train to Siliguri and jeeps to Darjeeling.
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