Hunt for Breakfast: Flurys!

I couldn't postpone writing this one any longer. Well, tomorrow morning its gonna be a different place that we hunt, and the last hunt should get reported before that. Isn't it?

So last Sunday morning, the trio and the toddler went to the famous Flurys on Park Street, Kolkata, India. We were lucky to get seated promptly as we entered, because soon there was a big queue outside. The inside had small square tables strewn about, abuzz with chatter of the early birds. There were few big but empty tables with just a solitary guard on one chair, you guessed it right, reserving tables till the rest of group decided to show up. I found this odd at first but as the queue grew outside I realized the importance of the seat guards.

The breakfast menu was very interesting and pretty confusing one to choose too for the first timers like us. So we decided to go with the first things on the menu - English breakfast - with hash browns, sausages, eggs and bacon, grilled tomato, *sugarcane* juice and coffee, the Joggers breakfast - (we cancelled it later since there was no juice and had green tea - yuk! - instead we got two English breakfast) and Eggs Benedict - eggs and muffins with Hollandaise sauce.

Little one was busy trying out various packets of sugar on the table but soon was distracted by the counters showing off the exquisite varieties of cakes and pastries. He dragged me to check out all the "hap-ep-pen to you" as he calls pastries affectionately.

Hubby dear was a darling and offered to feed a choco-cake to the little one when the breakfast arrived. It was just yumm yumm and yumm. Unfortunately by the time he got to eat, the breakfast was absolutely cold which he didnt enjoy as much. On that count, we have a solid reason to go back and try their breakfast once more!

The bill was super bulky for breakfast, however, no one is complaining as the food did justice all the way. Looking forward to the next trip to Flurys to catch up more on the place, this time I was too engrossed to look up from my plate.

Tryst with a Temple

We have been planning to visit the Birla Temple, Ballygunge, Kolkata, ever since we landed in the city. However, the visit happened just a couple of weeks back, on a rainy Saturday evening. Probably that was not the most suitable day to visit the place after all.

We parked the car in the lane next to it, there are no provision for car park - the place also has the well known Birla Auditorium which plays host to many a renown artists round the year. Anyway, nit-picking aside, we parked it a little down the road, away from the temple. As it was drizzling lightly and my baby was sleeping, we left him with his grand parents in the car. Hubbs and I went ahead for a little 'together' time in the temple!

As we reached the temple gates we met the 'al(l)mighty' - more powerful than the idols standing inside. Any guesses? Ah! Right you are , they are the Security Guards. "Bag dekhan - show your bags", "juto opasher ghore rakhun - keep shoes in that room over there", "camera nite parben na, bhetore locker o nei, ekjon ekjon kore opore jaan - you cannot carry the camera with you, there are no lockers to keep it, so go one by one." Well those were the orders we received and that ended any time together. 

I decided to go ahead. Rains had made the entry point totally messy and dirty. There was a rag of a thin coir carpet over one side of the white marble stairs. The pristine white marbles were not all that water friendly and coir was definitely a better option to walk on.

Once I reached the courtyard, the expanded podium gave a feeling of being free. Alas! There was a security lady there checking the bags once again for any food or water or what not. I reached her while a heated exchange over a bottle of water was going on with an elderly lady.

I walked up a couple of more steps and reached a corridor sort of place. It had pictures of various episodes of Krishna's life etched around the walls. There were two busts on either side, a lady and a gentleman, guess they are the Birla's in whose memory the temple was erected. There were few families sitting in the corridor in front of the busts. Some children running about playing catch. The security had a problem with that too, I remembered reading the list of Not to do's at the gate which said keep your children to yourself. 

The main deity, Radha Krishna duo, also made of marble and draped in expensive clothes and jewelry looked beautiful. An angry looking priest was sitting in front. I looked at the deity and then at the priest, wondered what had happened between the three. The devotees were to keep a distance from the front of the entrance to that room in which the deity were there, so something must have happened between the three of them only!

I went round the place, the intricate works on marble looked beautiful but were pretty dirty. Not sure how on a rainy day there could be so much dirt - did they not clean it everyday? Well, devotees were not allowed to touch any thing any how. So blame it on the wind.

There were two other rooms in the main temple - one belonged to Shiva and the other to Durga. I visited them too. The priests there looked rather bored. I walked out to the courtyard again. On one corner there was a room for Hanuman and another room housing the various 'avatar's of Krishna. 

People were scattered in that courtyard, chatting among themselves. I could see groups of foreigners in the crowd too. The view from the top was just the city traffic in the front and buildings on the sides. That was all there to see, so I went down and out of the place. 

Hubbs had been clicking away the roadside, temple as seen from the road and the vehicles on the road. But the most exciting picture was that of the moon that evening, never thought our Cannon would focus that far.

(So you know how I feel about that place, if anyone visiting Kolkata wants to visit that place, please don't ask me for company!)

In Search of enLIGHTenment

We had been planning to buy some fancy lamp shades for our house for sometime now. Last weekend we finally made the trip to Ezra Street, part of the wholesale electronic goods market, in search of the perfect light. What an interesting trip it turned out to be.

Hubby and I took the metro from Garia, the half hour journey was uneventful and we alighted at the Central station. This was the first time I was there. OMG, how massive that construction was. On my own I might have had to ask a dozen people for help to go out of the desired gate. Salute to the metro designer/planners for making such a maze for public to play with on a daily basis, that too free!

After resurfacing we looked for Poddar Court - a reputed commercial complex known for its office spaces and electronic goods market. From the metro exit we walked into a market area, filthy road, goods vehicles parked on the sides, human carriers running about with loads on their head or back. We crossed this mess of a road to reach the huge Poddar Court complex. The Jakia street, where this building is, is a one way and vehicles are not allowed to park or stop there by order. The hand carts an exception and in plenty - maybe because they are not motorized vehicles?

That building was full of shops selling electrical goods - fans, lights, fittings. We walked into a big shop, the dazzlers all neatly hooked up. I loved a couple of them, but the sales person was irritated, "aapni egulo niye ki korben, porishkar rakhte parben na. Lagiyei toh bhule jaben." (Why do you want to take these, you won't be able to clean them. You will fix them and forget.) Well, he repeated that for almost all the things that I looked twice at. So we walked out and into a smaller shop this time. The lights were pretty and so were their prices. After these two encounters, we went looking for Ezra Street, the right light place, as was recommended by our friends.

It's a narrow but very busy street. Small tempo trucks, hand carts and human carriers with big loads on themselves blocked the street. However, people were freely moving in and out with numerous boxes in hand. We chose to enter a shop close to the entrance. The elegance of the place was lesser in comparison to the Poddar Court shops. With the drop in show the prices dipped too. Things which we had seen in the earlier shops were available at much lower rates.

We thought of exploring the shops further down the road. A little ahead, where the road narrowed a bit more, we saw a light 'bazaar' on the right. It was full of lamp shades, heaps of them on the tables and loads still in boxes. The place reminded me of the general vegetable market. Some of the hanging lights were lit. There were shops after shops in that little place. With no showmanship the prices slashed drastically. We were amazed by the collection and their prices. We hopped around with lust and greed reflecting from our eyes for those lovely shiny things.

There were chandeliers that would change colors, one would rotate, on another we could play music using an USB stick, lamps in various shapes and sizes, handmade and China cut, wood, brass or steel bracket. Phew!

After checking out most of the shops there, we decided to buy some. We picked a ceramic chandelier, one set of spotlights and two sets of marble printed double shades. This was all we could carry, so had to call it a day.

By then it was lunch time and the lovely smell of the street food cried out to us. With a tummy load of kachori-sabji-jalebi and our 'light' boxes, we were too heavy to walk to the metro station, so we caught a running taxi and jumped in.

The second visit will happen soon and more pictures will be added here of the shining place - this time we were too dazzled to click. Do check back!

The Indian Coffee House

This place, Coffee House, on a by-lane off the College Street, Kolkata, India, is a nostalgic burden on a Bengali's conscience. Immortalized by the song "Coffee house er shei adda ta aaj ar nei" (the get together at the Coffee house is no more) by the legendary Manna Dey.

Coffee House has been entertaining the cultural illuminati of  Bengal, starting from Satyajit Ray to Aparna Sen, Amartya Sen to Shakti Chattopadhyay to many others across generations.

All these thoughts were racing in my mind when on a sultry sunday evening my hubby dragged me to that place for a first look.

Thanks to the GPS, we were able to navigate through the puzzling city roads and reach our destination. Being a Sunday evening, the place was deserted. We were not even sure if Coffee House was open. The nearby shops were all shut. We parked under a dim street light and walked over to the entrance of the famous canteen to find it open.

The old shabby place is a couple of floors high. Next to the entrance on the ground floor is a huge grid of age old electric switches. A curved staircase leads to the first floor, where we see a sign for Indian Coffee House, the door to the right. There are posters and announcements on the surrounding walls advertising about various events like plays, music concerts or even protest marches happening in the neighborhood.

As we entered we were greeted by a gush of hot air, assorted aroma of various food items, an overwhelming stench of the almost visible cigarette smoke and a distinct murmur from all sides.
I realized that the place is massive in height, almost two and half floor above was the ceiling. Ceiling fans dangling from that height offered very little respite. There were just a couple of windows open to air the entire place and that explained the stuffiness.

Big and small groups of people were seating around, young friends or very old ones. We, not being a part of either end of the spectrum, felt a little out of place. We took a table at one end of the room, near one open window. With chicken and mutton "chaap" in hand we tried to take in the 'atmosphere' of the place clinging on to its past.

As for the taste of 'coffee' in the Coffee House, that's another story altogether.

My First 'Kolkata' Moment

It's been a tough first few months in Kolkata for us. The weather, the office systems, the road repair works everything and everyone seemed to have conspired to give us a tough start. But then there were some amazing fun, family and food moments which gave us the strength to move ahead with gusto. 

Let me share my first "Kolkata" moment today. It was our second Sunday in the city. We planned to visit his aunt in Maniktala, unaware of the fact that a Mohun Bagan - East Bengal football match was scheduled that day at the Salt Lake stadium. I will never forget this particular journey we took on the E.M. Bypass. 

We started for Maniktala in the late afternoon. Soon we saw a mini truckload of people with one of the club flags waving high in air. They were chanting some slogans which I couldn't understand initially. Honestly, I (still) don't know which flag represents which club- some of you might be stunned by this revelation and question my worthiness to be on this planet, but then that's the truth! 

So, given my lack of knowledge, I thought it might be some political group and ignored them. But soon there were many more such mini truckload of people with flags on the road. Then I noticed there were infact two different flags and that's when the idea struck that it must be a football match. The famous Mohun Bagan vs East Bengal football match. And the fans of these clubs were going to the stadium to witness the 'killing'. 

The road was spilling with people from all sides. People were in autos, cars, two wheelers and on foot waving flags, bearing the monogram of their loved clubs. Total strangers favoring the same club "hi-fived" and smiled and waved at each other. Slogans supporting each team were doing the rounds. 

The highlight of the journey however were the casual banters between the rival team fans. Sitting inside my car I turned a shade of red hearing the colorful obscenities hurled at each other. The fans were describing what their teams would do to the rivals on the ground, with all possible "Beep" words (some of those 'beep' expressions were totally new to me and took sometime to comprehend :P) I was aware that the language at the street level in the city is choking with such expletives but hearing them being shouted across vehicles on a crowded road (with so much passion and articulation) was an experience in itself. 

Could capture just one snap of the fans, here it is.

The Purpose

Years of planning finally about to become a reality.

We, me n hubby, have been wanting to shift base to Kolkata for sometime now. Lots of reasons are behind our decision but one definitely is the fun and food and festivities associated with the city.

Both of us had never really stayed in Kolkata but had only heard about the city and its charisma. Now it's time to savor it first hand.

At the same time our heart is heavy to leave Chennai behind. Last seven years here has given us many memorable moments which will be cherished and missed always.

But change is what life is about and a new chapter is about to unfold.

In this blog, I would try to capture moments that we spend in getting to know Kolkata and maybe start with a tribute to Chennai!