The objective of this series is to talk about places which people can explore in Calcutta/Kolkata. After staying in the city for a long time, I started exploring only now & even though first two walks were not up-to the expectation, eventually I was pleasantly surprised with the results :)
I have always believed Calcutta is the place when it comes to good food, culture, soul of the city, helpfulness of people, etc. But I or any other Calcuttan for that matter have never thought that city has places worth exploring. So when a friend bought a book named "Ten walks in Calcutta", I felt the time was right to burst this myth. Idea was to select a part of city & walk around it to see if there are any places which would be worth the effort. Also we decided we would take help of the book, some websites & my knowledge, which is extremely limited.
We started with a pilot, which was done without a camera & which turned out to be a decent experience. Fully charged we decided to walk towards Burrabazaar through Bastalla, which surely would be one of the most populated street in the world. At any point during the day one cannot walk through the street without bumping into multiple commuters & walking is tricky as one needs to duck, swerve, run, stand, jump, etc at some point or the other. So we reached Burrabazaar & we decided to break for a cuppa @
Bapu Tea Stall. Now the best tea in kolkata would definitely be "
Pauwa Patti' chai here, the concept is they take a Pau (250 grams/lts) of milk & reduce it to a cup of tea, which would also have plenty of masala. Its a time consuming process, but the wait is completely worth the end product. Post this we walked towards howrah bridge, visiting the
Mullick Ghat flower market. Its a great place for anyone with a penchant for clicking pictures, amazingly beautiful variety of flowers & loads of them. It is a great place to spend an evening, the only catch being the smell of rotten flowers, leaves, etc which might be little too much for a person with sensitive nose. Post this we kept walking near the numerous ghats spending time at all the ghats & interacting with various groups on the way who would be indulging in either a joyous discussion or a game of cards. While walking we came across a small Akhara, two Pahalwan practising their moves in a small soil/mud filled enclosure. And the location was the key thing there, it was bang on a small ghat. Needless to say, like all the other ghats in Calcutta this was also extremely dirty. We then took a
steamer to Ahiritola Launch Ghat, to visit
Bhoothnath temple. Steamer has always been one of my preferred mode of transportation when it is available. After spending some time at the temple we had a second cuppa near Bhoothnath clubbed with some Puchkas (both highly recommended). Then we started back for home. It was a satisfying pilot & we took a call of continuing this.
So we started our first walk in the series of many such walks.
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| Lake with a light & sound fountain |
Lake- So for first walk we decided we would try and cover parts of south Calcutta starting from Lake & then taking it from there. Now I would have crossed lake hundreds of times, but have never bothered to see the actual lake. With a garden around it, clubbed with dim light, it was an ideal place for love birds. It did look beautiful but was not that great a sight which will wow you.
Feasting on Sand-Art- Post which we started walking on the lake road, we had Puchkas near Lake Kali Badi (Badi is Bengali for home). We were just passing by when we saw a signboard for an exhibition of Sand art, made by Sudarshan Patnaik. It was drizzling & we couldn't care less for rain, but it was affecting the exhibition & people were waiting for rains to subside before venturing inside. So it was completely empty & without thinking twice we entered & started looking around, and I was impressed within seconds. It was awesome display of creativity, precision & patience. Some of the work were so good that it didn't look like piece of art made of sand. There was a piece dedicated to Malala, one in support of Obama & one dedicated to hurricane victims. We spent loads of time there & after looking at the work created by Sudarshan patnaik, we went ahead & took a look at the art created by the people who attended his workshop & mostly were first timers. Some of the piece even here were too good, though it was all getting destroyed by rain. We decided it was time to bail out.
Hunt for ideal Tea-joint- Being a tea-lover, I always look to find new places for good & if possible, new varieties of tea. We had found a place called Dolly Tea shop a few days back & tried a few variants there, but it didn't live up to my expectation. The idea was to track down The Tea Trove, which is somewhere near chakraberia, and try some of the specialty of that place. But universe was conspiring & while we were walking towards chakraberia we came across 'Tea Cafe' a small tea shop on Southern avenue. And after a long time I was happy with a new variant of Tea, which was cold tea. It was regular milk masala tea, which was cold & tasted pretty good. It was the first-with-milk cold tea that I had tasted which was good. Post this we continued towards "The Tea Trove", walking for 5-6 kms easily. It was a good place with nice ambiance, young crowd playing games or chatting. Loads of energy & you don't have to sweat a lot before liking the place, but then tea came & it turned out to be an ordinary version of a masala tea. That did it for us, we decided to call for reinforcement (read other friends), went to saw a movie & ended the day's walk without seeing much.
We then moved towards central part of Calcutta, starting from Mission Row. Since it was a few days before Christmas, we saw that most of the churches were decked up & people were practicing carols. We went inside Mission Church & spent some time there. Roads were empty & beautiful, it was cold hence at many places people were burning wooden stuff to get some warmth. We walked for the entire stretch till Central Avenue. And it was time for a Tea break.
Post this next stop was Hedua lake, now we wanted to capture the carnival feel of the place by clicking pictures but soon we ourselves got engulf into it. As soon as I saw a rifle & a board full of balloons, I knew what I had to do. We shot every nail, coil, coin & even a wire, which was strung off a rope, before we moved ahead. While going around the lake, we found out that this was a usual hanging area of young couples, who do not get private space for expressing their love. Lack of proper coverage of light bulbs didn't hurt their cause. At the end was a typical place where elderly of the locality would get to have their regular adda. 
Post this we reached the famed sweet shop & tried out 3-4 varieties. Now its not a fluke that this shop is extremely famous & at any point in time is thronged by consumers. It was time for nalen gur, which happens to be my favorite type of sandesh. After trying 3-4 variants of nalen gur, we moved to chocolate sandesh, which was also pretty good. But the best was reserved for the end, it was nalen gur sandesh wrapped in fat slice of Malai, and it was heavenly. We had two rounds of the last mentioned variety & all the good work done by walking throughout the day was nullified, but it was completely worth it.
The last bit of the fun was reserved the notorious auto-rickshaw drive till kankurgachi. The vehicle was decked up with disco light & a CD with choicest of himesh hits playing on the music system at its loudest. With the auto wallah driving like there is no tomorrow or there is a beautiful damsel in distress who is supposed to be saved by him , it was a fun way to end the day.
We then moved towards central part of Calcutta, starting from Mission Row. Since it was a few days before Christmas, we saw that most of the churches were decked up & people were practicing carols. We went inside Mission Church & spent some time there. Roads were empty & beautiful, it was cold hence at many places people were burning wooden stuff to get some warmth. We walked for the entire stretch till Central Avenue. And it was time for a Tea break.
Post this next stop was Hedua lake, now we wanted to capture the carnival feel of the place by clicking pictures but soon we ourselves got engulf into it. As soon as I saw a rifle & a board full of balloons, I knew what I had to do. We shot every nail, coil, coin & even a wire, which was strung off a rope, before we moved ahead. While going around the lake, we found out that this was a usual hanging area of young couples, who do not get private space for expressing their love. Lack of proper coverage of light bulbs didn't hurt their cause. At the end was a typical place where elderly of the locality would get to have their regular adda. 
The last bit of the fun was reserved the notorious auto-rickshaw drive till kankurgachi. The vehicle was decked up with disco light & a CD with choicest of himesh hits playing on the music system at its loudest. With the auto wallah driving like there is no tomorrow or there is a beautiful damsel in distress who is supposed to be saved by him , it was a fun way to end the day.
