The City of Joy!

Well, I’m off to Calcutta for a little holiday. It’s the place of my birth, or so my parents tell—and my birth certificate—so I guess I have to take their word for it!

If you’re waiting to hear me sing praises of Calcutta—or Kolkata, as one is supposed to call it now—you’re in the wrong blog! My relationship with the City of Joy has been of a hate–hate kind, despite it being filled with people I am very fond of!

This is more of a social visit, what with the Significant Other never having had the pleasure before. We expect to be spending most of our time visiting grandparents and aunts and uncles, and hopefully a friend or two. Apart from that, I intend to eat a lot: fish fries and chicken rolls mostly! And a local delicacy called phuchka and jhaal muri, not to mention churmur. (Don’t ask for translations because I can’t translate!) The relatives will stuff us with food, no doubt—I only hope there isn’t any fish. I hate fish unless it’s in Bong-style fish fries or in fish and chips!

Apart from that, we will do the rounds of the book shops (which we do wherever we go!), walk around a lot and pretend we are not lost when we actually are! That last is likely to happen a lot as we have not been able to get a detailed street map of Cal!

(If anyone wants/needs anything from there, leave me a comment!)

In short, I could say we plan to paint the town red in our own little way. But that is quite impossible as Calcutta is as red as you can get (Bengal is has a communist government!)! We’ll settle for mild soothing shade of pink, then.

~PD