India Part 8 : Kolkata

Indira Gandhi monument.

One last train in India, again a night train, scheduled to leave Gaya at 9:30 in the evening so plenty of time to walk there and get some dinner.  Except of course, when I get to the station to check on the train, it is running a good two hours late, joy.  Wouldn't be a problem in a civilised country but here?  I find a restaurant, buy some dinner and also a two litre bottle of lemonade which I spend some time drinking, much to the confusion of the waiter.  Seriously what do people do of an evening here?  Well, the railway station at least has something close to a cafe, I drink quite a few coffees as the train gets later and later, finally turning up at 1:30am, yay.  At least I can get some sleep before reaching Kolkata the following day.  Honestly I'm not expecting a lot here, don't know much about the place other than it being the location of the famous 'black hole', so I am prepared for even more rubbish, urine and worse things than usual.  Something of a shock then to find the city is as close as I've found to civilisation in India, there are actual pavements to walk on, I see no cows, and few rickshaws - rather, there are the 40s Morris styled yellow taxis everywhere, and even a tram network.  Even more shockingly, on the way to my hotel I pass a supermarket, the first one I have seen in this country.

The Victoria Memorial Hall.

There are bars here too, and I confess I put the sightseeing on hold for a bit to relax, have a number of beers - and then recover the next day.  Seems that as in Delhi, bars here come with a substantial troupe of entertainers, but here the pretty girls don't just sit by the side of the band, but actually get up and gyrate - fully clothed I hasten to add.  Each has a cloth bag in front of her, and in the busier bars, the customers (all male of course) take turns to hand banknotes to the waiters, who then put them in one or other girl's bag.  One waiter comes up to me and shows me a bunch of 100 Rupee notes, he doesn't really have any English but I think he wants to sell me them?  Ten of them for, er, 100 Rupees?  I guess they are what, forgeries, or maybe old currency from before the demonetisation thing they just did here, though to be honest they look identical to what I have in my wallet.  All a bit too weird for me to be honest which makes the situation a little uncomfortable, but there are other bars to choose from, some of them a bit quieter.

There was a very long queue of sparkly horse drawn carriages.

And yes, there is sightseeing to do here of course.  I walk through a few parks, noticeable that the nicer bits of them all seem to be fenced off from the public, but there's a lot of open green space too, I do spot a few cows, also horses - seems you can come here and rent one for a little gallop about.  There's a lot of British legacy here too, from the many years this was the colonial capital, plenty of churches including a cathedral (St. Pauls believe it or not), and most impressively the Victoria Memorial Hall.  This is a huge structure, set amongst ornamental gardens and ponds, its design is clearly inspired by the Taj Mahal, and while not as gracious in aspect it does manage to be considerably bigger.  Inside, staircases lead up to a gallery suspended around the inside of the dome, the space decorated with a series of scenes from the life of the Queen Empress, while on the ground floor there is a museum, framed, yellowing documents in Bengali contrasting oddly with statues of people such as Clive and Curzon.

St. Pauls.

This is my last city in India, and in all honesty I'll be glad to get away.  There is certainly an awful lot to see here, but the sad truth is that in order to get to a lot of it, you have to spend time in the stinking toilets they call cities in this country.  Well, I can imagine that a trip through more rural parts of the country might be better, and I've heard things aren't so bad in the South, and indeed in Goa which by all accounts has an identity all of its own.  Overall though I would be rather hesitant to recommend this place as a holiday destination, and I'm not sure I'll be in a great hurry to return.  I find myself wondering what combination of history, culture, economics and so forth has led to the state the country finds itself in.  At a guess, it's partly an unfortunate side effect of the attitude these people have to animals - in many ways, it's admirable the way so many of them refuse to harm other creatures, and even feel an obligation to feed them, but there's no getting away from the fact the result is that there is, to put it bluntly, shit everywhere.  So maybe when that is the case, it doesn't seem worth the effort to tidy your own rubbish away?  I don't know... the other thing I notice is how few women, particularly of child bearing age, you see here.  Various reasons for that I guess, but thinking about the mess many men make of their homes without a woman keep them in line, I can sort of see this country as a filthy bachelor flat writ large.  I guess I should be grateful I've managed not to catch anything while I'm here...