Walking through City of Joy- 4

It was to be the best day of our exploration so far, as wherever we went we got more than what we expected. It was also to be the biggest surprise in my experience so far in Calcutta as I got to know the wealth that exists here, as I went to Marble palace or as people call it, Mullick-badi.

Our plans were already set in place as we decided to start with one of the famous Churches in Calcutta, get the permissions & visit both synagogues & follow that up with a visit to Nakhuda Masjid & end with Marble palace or as locals call it, "Mullick Badi".

Christmas decor

Church- It was Christmas holiday and we reached decently post the morning mass, so the church was empty but for the local organ player. And the church had the biggest organ that I had seen so far in my life. Huge instruments, with very old ivory made keys & functionality was also very outdated, giving it that old world aura. But it produced awesome music, as demonstrated by the organ player.


Synagogue- After requesting a lot we got approval through a phone call, as again the approving authority wasn't there at the Nahoum Bakery. Our trump card being the story of Maskey shifting to US in near future & this being his last opportunity to visit both the synagogues. 10 minutes later we were traveling towards the first of the synagogue with one of the regular worker of the bakery. He gave us loads of information about the local Jewish community & the dynamics governing the responsibilities of the social owned stuff of the fraternity, which kept us engaged till we reached the first of the synagogues.

Beth el synagogue-  We knew that  it would be beautiful, having seen the exterior that bit was pretty easy to predict. But since this was the first visit to any synagogue for me, quite a few interesting things emerged out of the experience. Simple things like the skull cap which you need to wear before entering, they were extremely particular about it even though there wasn't a Jew there in sight there, staff was extremely sensitive towards the tradition & customs.

Beth-el Synagogue

It was beautiful at all level, not in your face kind of beauty but serene & calm kind of beauty which soothes your mind. Right from color combination used, white & blue, to old fashioned high ceiling with hanging fans & lights, it was all part of the look. All the windows were made up of different colored glasses, when sunlight passes the glass it takes the color of the glass itself giving it a really nice touch. Chairs & all were in really bad condition, but rest everything was well maintained.



Basic understanding of the structure was very simple, one dedicated area for "Torah Study", where the book would be kept & read, with chairs around it for listeners. 'Torah' would be kept on 'Bimah', a wooden table. Then there would be another area which would be used to keep religious pictures & symbols. This area would be beautifully decorated & full of pictures of symbols which we couldn't understand, but it was nice nonetheless.

Maghen David

Maghen David Synagogue- Though second in the series of Synagogues, it was better than the previous one in terms of beauty. Huge chandeliers hanging on top of the 'Torah study' & the reflection of the windows falling from all directions, make the thing looks fantastic. Beth-el was covered from all direction hence no reflection of colored glasses were visible in side, the same wasn't true in case of Maghen David making it more colorful.

Beautiful looking windows all around, made the place a visual treat. Then the area where the signage/symbols/pictures were kept was much better here. The place also had a different kind of lamp, with a very exotic looking ceiling. It was intriguing for us & without answers to our questions regarding the relevance of all the elements, it remained like that till we came out. The place also had some real designer type stand lamps, which added to the visual appeal. We clicked loads of pictures here, but then we decided to move as there were many more places mentioned on the agenda for the day.

Roads leading to Nakhuda Masjid

Nakhuda Masjid- Like both of the previous public religious place, this was also in middle of nowhere surrounded by shops & restaurants with sea of humanity on all sides. It had a very interesting facade, which stood tall in front of the mosque.
After a while we decided to enter but we were slightly circumspect, blame it on the image created by media or the various news channels or the incidents across the globe or the bias created by our own mind, but we realized later that it was for no reason. It was a different set up inside, the flow of activities were, you enter & proceed towards the well where you clean yourself, feet, face, hands, etc after which you proceed for offering "namaaz".

Clocks with different time

Just behind the facade there was a collection of watches which were showing different time, we guessed that they were attuned to various holy places as per Islam. Overall a very interesting setup with huge open spaces. Loads of people coming & going, at times interacting with known faces for a while. We clicked loads of pictures here also, some came out real nice.

Mullickbadi from outside the official boundary

Mullick-badi or Marble palace- Nothing could have prepared us for the brilliance which we were to encounter here, this was a place which was abode for Raja Rajendra Mullick built by him in 1835, which is still used by his descendants. The place has so many different facets about it that I don't know where to start & where to end.

Beautiful statue inside dirty pond

It is usually not open on weekends, hence visitors have to come on week days in order to enter. There are clearly demarcated public areas which you can enter which has interesting things but other parts are beyond visitors as the royal family still lives there. Daily select number of people are given free food for which there is a queue system (first come first model). And the place is full of beautiful stuff, but camera is not allowed inside. It also has a garden for the kids to play & enjoy themselves.

As soon as one enter, the first sight is the enormous building, in front of which is a beautiful fountain. Now this fountain is the only thing which can be clicked officially, but our greed forced us to take couple of other picture as well of breathtakingly beautiful sculptures. If there were two common observation which has to be mentioned for all pieces of work they would be, first everything is awesomely beautiful & second, none of it is properly maintained. Will come back to maintenance bit later, the place was also home for host of animals & birds of different variety. I don't even know their names apart from the a few like Peacock, Monkey, Orangutan, Langur, Emu, etc. But the sad bit was again they were not kept properly, as in the area was limited for some of the animals, some of them looked as if they were not well, etc. Though I am no expert on these matters, but even then it looked as if the animals were not comfortable.

Also we came across couple of awesome sculpture beautifully made, but completely abandoned. First one would be one of the most amazing piece of work that I have seen in my life & it was kept in a dirty pond which was used for the staff to wash their clothes. I was so sad by seeing this, but statue was changing color, it was dirty but still you can appreciate the effort put it by the unknown artist, at least I was full of respect for him/her.
Second statue was kept somewhere away from the eyes of the regular tourist, it was kept in a low footfall areas of the palace. Condition was not very good & I am pretty sure it was a broken piece of a larger work of art, still it looked pretty nice.

We were already so impressed (and a little sad by the state of affairs), that we could have actually moved out, but better sense prevailed and we decided to enter the main building where there is a part where Raja's collectible are displayed for art lovers to appreciate. After waiting a bit we entered & as soon as we entered we were amazed, not regular amazed but jaw dropping, mouth opening, ass-kicking kind of amazed. The display area was huge part of ground floor & first floor, and every inch of the huge area was covered with some painting made by Reuben or Ravi Verma or some other known artist or it was covered with some sculpture looking extremely expensive or there were visiting cards of great people, politician, etc or vase which looked as if you couldn't buy it with your net worth even after you keep saving for hundreds of years, since we couldn't take any picture hence I am sure I am forgetting many things. But I do remember one thing, we were seriously impressed by the amount of things on display their & the collected net worth that place would have. I mean every single article should be worth at least lacs, if not crores in INR. Their was a select display of birds here also, we were told that Raja Rajendra Mullick was a bird lover.

Palace of Raja Rajendra Mullick

All in all a must visit place for anyone coming to Calcutta for quite a few reasons, one needs to select the personal reason for him/herself.

All in all, a great day with a diverse set of places to explore. Level of satisfaction was rising after every day, we decided this has to continue for at least one more day.

A weekend full of drama (Movies)!!!

I have not had a movie-marathon weekend for a long time now & truth be told I was missing it. So this weekend I decided it would be just movies & books for me, more former than latter. The list of movies to watch always keeps increasing & hence it is critical to have these weekends where a major reduction happens in the list. The weekend started with me & couple of friends watching "Jack the giant slayer" at the theater. Nothing much to write about this ordinary movie, still I would take an ordinary movie to start off the weekend given the kind of movies that are getting released these days.

Was in a mood for drama based movies, so I ended up seeing 6 movies namely "The perks of being a wall flower", "Your sister's sister", "People like us", "Pitch perfect", "Reign over me" & "Vishwaroop". Almost all the movies were good, and some extremely good, especially "The perks of being a wallflower" or TPBW which is an awesome coming of age movie with superlative performances by Emma Watson, Logan Lerman & Ezra miller. Emma Watson has received fair share of appreciation as Hermione in HP movies, but she is a revelation here portraying a range of emotions & doing it perfectly at that. As a mentally scarred young boy who is still struggling to find his place in the school, Logan Lerman does well. Coping with baggage of bad memories from childhood, close friend committing suicide, failing at love, etc he is just trying to find a place where he would actually belong & the pain of all the events shows in his performance. But the real star of the show is Ezra Miller, who first impressed me in "We need to talk about kevin" a movie where he managed his own amongst seasoned actors like Tilda Swindon & John C Reily. His performance in this movie just reaffirms the promise that was visible before. All in all a great movie, one of the better ones from last year & a must watch for all.

"Your sister's sister" has a great ensemble cast, who specializes in this kind of movie, Lynn Shelton is the director of the movie, whereas Mark Duplass, Emily Blunt & Rosemarie DeWitt play the main characters in the movie. Its a movie with a deadly combination of humor & emotions. Primary theme of the movie is various characters dealing with grief, Mark Duplass struggling with death of his brother & his stagnating life, Rosemarie DeWitt dealing with separation with her partner & notion of getting a child in her life & Emily blunt dealing with falling in love with her deceased boyfriend's brother. Even with so much of emotional baggage movie keeps inducing a smile or a laugh every now & then, as the heavy stuff is treated in a light manner. And it all merges into a happy & uplifting climax. One of the must watch for someone keen on a light hearted drama, with a few smiles/laughs here & there.

"People like us" starring Chris pines, Elizabeth banks & Michelle Pieffer in main roles, the movie is a family drama where Chris Pines & Elizabeth Banks play characters who have grown without love/acceptance of their father. Both of them are struggling in their life & are really bad in maintaining relationship because of their childhood based father-related issues. Chris Pines plays a debt ridden sales professional who never got to interact much with his father during his childhood & Elizabeth plays a struggling bartender-cum-single-mother who never got the legitimacy from her father as he leaves them early on in her life. But both come together post the father dies due to the letter left by the father for Chris Pines, making the movie one hell of an emotional ride. It is a good watch with good performances from the entire cast, another movie which is a definite one time watch.

"Pitch Perfect" is a movie based on competition in the sphere of a-capella (music without instruments, only basis the singing & instrument sound made from mouth). Its a really light movie with decent performance from Anna Hendricks, who plays the central character of the movie dealing with lack of understanding of her father in her keen interest in music mixing & creating. She join the the girls a-capella group of the campus in order to convince her father about her serious attempt at college life. And the movie continues with her effort to reinvent the group, leading to the most predictable outcome, i.e. the group winning the competition. Decent performances & a-capella rendition of some nice songs makes this movie a decent watch & Anna Hendricks as usual impresses with her performance here also. All in all a decent one time watch.

"Reign over me", Don Cheadle & Adam Sandler portrays the central characters in this movie, where Adam Sandler plays a bereaved husband & father due to 9/11 events & Don Cheadle plays his friend who trying to help his friend back to normalcy. Adam Sandler bring the role of a grief stricken characters who stays in denial & prefers to forget about the part of his life which has painful turn of events rather than dealing with it. He doesn't have friends & due to a chance encounter his college roommate, Don cheadle, catches hold of him. He is shown to be mentally unstable, portraying anger at any instance where he is made to relive his past & also he doesn't want to stay in touch with people who reminds him of his girls & wife. Don Cheadle while happy to meet an old friend, also realizes the need for his friend to get medical treatment to get over the losses he has suffered. A very restrained performance by Adam Sandler, usual class shown by Don Cheadle, along with decent performances by the support cast makes this movie a good viewing experience. Recommended for those who are not averse to watch tragic-drama.

A very interesting bunch of movies seen over one weekend. As far as "Vishwaroop" is concerned, which I saw because of Kamala Hassan & Rahul Bose acting in the movie, lesser spoken/written about the movie better it is..