Welcome to Kolkata!
Trip Start
May 31, 2007
1
95
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Trip End
May 20, 2008
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Kolkata (Calcutta),
India
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Walked into the hotel pretty well shell-shocked from the drive and pollution and after some check-in drama, collapsed on my bed, lit some sandalwood incense in my Ganesha ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha ) incense holder both given to me at the Beach and Lake to kill the mothballsinthedrain smell of my bath and went to sleep. The sounds and clanks of my wall a/c humming in the background, occasionally interrupted by the loud voices of the locals down at the hotel entry below.
Slept in this am, woke up and did some yoga asanas and pranyana that I had learned from Sree Kumar, the yoga guru at the Beach and Lake, and had a quick 'American Breakfast' down at the restaurant before meeting briefly with my new leader in the lobby unexpectedly and discussing the trip, group meeting and state of American politics and the protests in Tibet. Set off in a taxi (40 INRs!) to the magnificent Oberoi Grand "The Grand" hotel to start my city explorations.
The city is filled with a juxtaposition of narrow streets and alleyways lined with crumbling buildings and large boulevards dotted with huge billboards and the latest consumer products on demand. Last night I saw a few huge billboards selling the latest products illuminated by lights powered by gas generators humming away right in front of the ad! The local infrastructure is often not up to date or able to power the modern India...and power outages are the norm rather than the exception in most of the places I have visited. My taxi made a u-turn and drove along a covered walkway filled with hawkers and stores right up to the heavily guarded entrance to "The Grand". The guards gave the car and us a brief inspection and then waved us through. The staff greeted us traditionally with hands together at their chest and a small head bow as I paid the cab and entered the hotel. The serenity and quiet was almost palpable as I made my way back to the restaurant to enjoy another masala chai and have some granola. The waiter told me that since most people don't order the granola he would check to see if it was available and do everything in his power to make sure that I had it...a markedly different response than usual when something isn't available even though it's listed on the menu...ah, to live in the world of wealth and privilege! What arrived was a collection of granola nuggets floating in skim milk. I sort of looked at it for a moment while the waiter paused anxiously and asked "Is this to your liking, madam? Is there anything that I can do?" I smiled and said that it was fine and he left. Since the granola nuggets were about three times the size of my mouth, I picked one up with my spoon and bit part of it off as gently as I could without sending it flying across the table. That seemed to work ok, so I proceeded to eat the rest of them in the same manner... I settled the bill (5 times what I had paid for my entire breakfast this am) grabbed some packets of raw sugar (we don't have any at our hotel : ) ) and wandered around a bit of the lobby and grounds before setting off into the rush and bustle of the streets of Kolkata.
Was approached by multitudes of store owners, beggers and touts wanting my business...I was polite then firm and able to proceed along finally without being bothered. After telling a couple of guys following me about 6 times that I wasn't interested. I finally stopped, looked them each in the eyes and said "Look, I'm trying to be polite here...I'm NOT interested...please leave me alone." My delivery of this message combined with the look in my eyes seemed to do the trick and I was finally left to explore at my own pace...
