Tag Archives: Kolkata

Rant

Kolkata: The City of (kill)joy

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My family hails from Kolkata, the (supposed) grand and noble megacity. I have ranted about this city many-many times, especially during the only 1 unfortunate year in my life that I stayed here. But that was more than 15 years ago and since then, I have never stayed here more than a couple of days at best (My shortest trip was a few hours long).

Because of the holiday season in Thailand, I decided to go visit my parents for slightly longer and re-analyse this city to see what has changed.

Full disclosure: Even within Kolkata, my parents stay in an objective worse location, so my point of view may be skewed compared to people living in more affluent areas.

Nature

Kolkata is quite green, compared to other cities in India. Especially the area where my parents live, there are many trees around.

Palm Trees & Greenery
Palm Trees & Greenery

At one point of time, Kolkata was dotted with ponds & lowlands. In fact many of the neighbourhoods names end with “pukur”, which means pond. Over the years, these ponds have been paved over and lost to eternity; leaving only their namesake “paras”. However, there are still some around, in the less affluent areas.

Cleanliness

There’s no way around it; Kolkata is the filthiest city I have had the misfortune of visiting. There’s trash and filth everywhere, even the fancy neighbourhoods. No one gives 2 shits about cleanliness.

Filthy streets
Filthy streets
Filthy buildings
Filthy buildings
So pretty na!
So pretty na!
Look at this trove, treasures untold
Look at this trove, treasures untold

People openly spit on the streets, throw their garbage anywhere they want.

Services

If you want to get work done, Kolkata is not the right city for it. Mobile services are one example. Banking is the biggest one. I already discussed how I spent shit loads of effort doping paperwork to convert my SBI account to NRO. What came of that? Zilch. They just sent back everything without an explanation. This time, when I went there to close my account, they were quite annoyed to start their working day on a negative note of account closure.

Private banks are not much better. I required some services around my Home Loan, so I looked up “Loan servicing branches” of my bank and spent an entire morning visiting them one by one and they all refused to help me. They would either say “we can’t do this, go to xxxx branch”, or simply “We have never done this before, we don’t know how”. Eventually I did find a very good branch to assist me and my work was done.

Similarly, calling labour to your home for repair work is a nightmare with them not coming on time or not showing up at all.

One particular example. I needed to update some details on my Aadhaar card. So I looked up a list of Aadhaar processing centres across the city and went on a (seemingly) easy mission. Here’s what happened

New Alipore Useless Post Office
New Alipore Useless Post Office
  1. Attempt 1 – Hobe na (Won’t happen, no explanation given)
  2. Attempt 2 – Ekhane hoye na (This doesn’t happen here)
  3. Attempt 3 – Lok neyi (Don’t have staff)
  4. Attempt 4 – Token shesh hoye gechhe (Out of tokens)
  5. Attempt 5 – Election duty te gechhe (Gone on election duty)
  6. Attempt 6 – Kalke aashun (Come tomorrow)
Bhowanipur useless post office
Bhowanipur useless post office

Eventually, I had to go to the main office 26kms away, where my work was done reasonably fast.

Transportation

Transportation in Kolkata is a proper shit-show.

Road Transport

Kolkata people have a special affinity towards honking. Almost all the cars would start honking a few seconds before the lights turn green. Some cars even keep honking while the lights are still red. There’s honking while overtaking and especially when there’s a traffic jam. The first few nights, I could even hear the honking in my dreams.

Typical sound on Kolkata roads

If you drive your own car, it is a nightmare. People have no sense of discipline and you need to do all you can to keep yourself from getting hit. Very-very stressful experience.

One funny thing I noticed was the affinity of Kolkata Traffic Police towards road barriers.

Random Barrier on the road
Random Barrier on the road
Random Barrier on the road
A Random Barrier on the road

The traffic police like to strew road barriers randomly on the streets (In the middle of major roads) with no explanation. You are driving along, minding your own business and suddenly there’s a barrier blocking your way and you either have to brake to a stop or swerve. I really don’t understand why this is. Not like the traffic is very fast here to begin with, why slow it down even further?

Random Barrier on the road
Random Barrier on the road

At traffic signals, the traffic needs to divide itself into 2 streams on the left and right sides of the barrier. Crazy.

If you decide to take a taxi, best of luck with that, too. Uber in Kolkata is notoriously bad. Every time I get a taxi, the driver calls me immediately after and tells me to cancel the trip and pay them cash. It is not even a one off incident, every time I call one, I go through 4-5 drivers who demand cash and cancel when you refuse. The cars are filthy inside and stink. The drivers also resist turning on the AC unless you keep pestering them.

The roads are also all littered with ugly billboards.

Fugly billboards everywhere
Fugly billboards everywhere
A typical road full of billboards
A typical road full of billboards

Curiously, most billboards in Kolkata are either for gold jewellery, political ads or house construction material (TMT bars, pipes etc).

Public Transport

Why use road transport you ask? Why not use public transport? Because that sucks balls, too. Kolkata people keep boasting about how they had the first metro in the country, but fail to mention how it has failed mostly into disrepair and has seen little expansion in decades.

Where else in the world can you find a metro with a frequency of 50 minutes between trains?

50 minute interval metro
50 minute interval metro

Where else in the world can you find a metro which doesn’t run on weekends? When my parents first told me about it, I thought surely they were misinformed or joking. But no, it is true.

In short, going anywhere in Kolkata is a struggle, whether you are rich or poor. We all suffer equally.

Food

Restaurant Food

Food in mid-end and high-end restaurants in India is quite costly for the value provided, but no different than the rest of India.

The good part is, there are many good restaurants and delivery is ever-present and fast.

But restaurant food is not what Kolkata is known for.

Street Food

Street food is where Kolkata really shines. It is cheap, delicious and (mostly) hygienic.

Others

Kolkata has many malls, but they compare nowhere to Delhi/Bengaluru/Mumbai mall standards.

South City Mall, Kolkata
South City Mall, Kolkata

However, the character of Kolkata lies not in the malls, but in the by-lanes.

By-lanes of Kolkata
By-lanes of Kolkata

Airport

Kolkata airport international terminal is the lousiest airport terminal I have been through. Unlike normal airports, both sides of a check in counter are named the same alphabet, but used by different airlines.

To make things more difficult for everyone, the displays above the counters don’t show flight information, but propaganda on how the airport is the “best improved” airport ever.

Guess which flight it is
Guess which flight it is

The immigration counters are sparsely staffed. When I travelled, there were 2 babus manning the counters.

The security check area has only 2 lanes.

2 lanes of security check
2 lanes of security check

The duty free section (as pcthepathfinder aptly said) looks like a stall at Pragati Maidan.

Kolkata Airport Duty Free joke
Kolkata Airport Duty Free joke
Bengali Airport Fight

Overall, I am glad to turn my back to this city and go back home.

Rant

Cities

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I think at this point in my life, I can safely call myself well travelled. Although I have never been to the quintessential western cities (Like New York, London or Paris), I have been to some pretty off-beat places.

raised building frame
Photo by Peng LIU on Pexels.com

I have a job where it is quite easy to shift my base to different places. I had a few offers to move again recently, and I was conflicted about it. So recently I started making a list of ratings for various cities I have been to, based on different parameters. These parameters are only based on things that are important to me.

Below are the cities, I have been to, rated on various parameters between 1 to 10.

Some things to remember

  1. I am only including major or metropolitan cities
  2. These ratings are purely based on my preferences and observations. Does not take into account other metrics I don’ deem important to me
  3. I do not take into account finances like income or cost of living. I assume proportional income everywhere
CityInfraFoodWeatherWalkabilityHistoryFriendlyDogTotal
Istanbul81069107555
São Paulo879958955
Bangkok6910679653
Melbourne10681042950
Budapest855896950
Vienna865894949
San Francisco757857948
Prague855894948
Helsinki9521043942
Kuala Lumpur655665336
Shanghai752852231
Bengaluru178364231
New Delhi281277027
Kolkata183165226
City Ratings

Infrastructure

This is probably the first thing one notices about a city, when you enter the airport and then when you leave it.

No doubt, Melbourne is the best city in this regard I have been to. Everything is clean and perfect. The roads, buildings etc. are all as should be in a utopian society.

Although I didn’t spend too much time in Helsinki, I found its infrastructure to be top-notch, too. The heated pavements were something I had never seen or imagined.

Budapest/Vienna/Prague all rank pretty high in this regard, too and São Paulo feels just like a quintessential European city.

San Francisco is beautiful, too, but I couldn’t un-see the mounds of human feces on every street corner and the sheer amount of homeless people.

Indian cities rank lowest. Although Delhi has a pretty good metro system, that is it. Everything is filthy and unkempt. Kolkata is even worse. Bengaluru, which has a huge potential has horrible roads and no water.

Food

Food is subjective, so the ratings are purely based on my own personal preferences.

Truly, I have never had food as good as Istanbul, ever.

Bangkok comes second, because of the sheer variety of the food available here. You have cheap (but hygienic) street food vendors as well as many Michelin starred restaurants within a block of each other.

Delhi and Kolkata come next, followed by São Paulo & Bengaluru.

view of a beyti kebab dish on a white plate
Photo by Mustafa Erdağ on Pexels.com

Weather and Air Quality

Weather is subjective and since I prefer warmer weather, I have rated Bangkok the highest.

Delhi and Kolkata are lowest because of the filthy air quality year round. Delhi is even lower than Kolkata because of the extreme heat during summers and unbearable (because there’s no heating anywhere) winters.

Walkability

I love walking (and street running), so walkability is important to me in a city. Perhaps it is not too surprising that these ratings mirror the ones for infrastructure as both these things are closely related.

Most cities in my list are extremely walkable, except the Indian cities, where walking on the streets is like gambling with your life. Maybe a few important ares in the cities have proper pavements, but certainly not throughout the city. To top it off, most motorcycle drivers feel free to ride on the pavements and cars try to run you down even at zebra crossings.

Historical Artifacts

Istanbul again wins hands down in this regard, being one of the oldest cities in the list and having been shaped by multiple empires.

European cities rank next, I love the thousands of years old architecture.

Most of the monuments in Delhi are a few hundred years old, but it is not difficult to find ones which are thousands of years old.

European colonised cities rank lowest, simply because they are not old enough to have significant historical artefacts, especially with the propensity of these colonisers to erase ethnic history.

brown and black mosque under white and blue cloudy sky
Photo by Yogendra Singh on Pexels.com

Friendliness towards outsiders

These ratings are purely about how the locals treat foreigners and expats.

Bangkok rates pretty high, because Thais, with some exceptions are very friendly and welcoming people. Although, if your appearance is very different from what they’re used to seeing, expect stares. Brazilians in São Paulo are also very friendly and welcoming. Because of their multi-cultural make up, there’s no one in the world who looks “weird” enough not to fit in there.

I have already written about the Chinese here.

I found most Europeans if not outright racist, at least pretty cold towards outsiders.

Australians are the worst. Although I did meet a few friendly Australians, most of them are racist pricks.

Dog Friendliness

I admit, some of the cities in the list above I visited before I had a dog and didn’t really notice how dog friendly they were, so the rating for those cities is from internet research.

Most cities in developed countries and São Paulo are as dog friendly as can be. Dogs are allowed almost everywhere – in malls, restaurants, cafés, bars, public transport, hotels. There are very little restrictions on what the dogs can do and where they can go, because their parents have enough common sense. These cities also have public dog parks.

India is not at all dog friendly. While pets are tolerated in Bengaluru and Kolkata, there are very few places where pets can go, limited to designated pet-specific businesses. Taxis won’t agree to take you if you have a pet. The public transport is not even human friendly, so I won’t even talk about dogs.

Delhi is the worst of all. People there actually hate dogs. There are severe restrictions on having dogs even in your own homes. Dogs need to take a separate lift when going out and they can’t be walked within the society grounds.

Bangkok is somewhere in the middle. Most people love dogs. Dogs are allowed in taxis and Tuktuks , but not in metros and buses. Most restaurants/cafes and malls allow dogs in the outdoor areas on leash and indoors in a pet buggy. Some malls and restaurants allow pets freely.

Rant

Electricity Woes

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The world’s first public electricity supply was a water wheel driven system constructed in the small English town of Godalming in 1881. I was born more than a 100 years later and this article documents my woes around electricity growing up.

Electricity woes
Photo by Pok Rie on Pexels.com

Asansol (Late 80s & 90s)

Asansol is a shitty town in West Bengal where one of my uncles lived. It was also the first stop where I went every year with my mother, during my summer vacations. My uncle and his family lived in the Sen Raleigh township at Kanyapur and it is the closest I have ever been to living in a village. I did not live in big cities during those years either (Gwalior, Indore etc), but this place gave new meaning to the term “backward”.

In summers, on average, there was electricity only for a few hours each day. At their house, even a fan was a luxury. I remember lying in bed for hours at night, not being able to sleep because it was too hot. When things were not too bad, the family used an inverter for the hours of the blackout. Eventually, over the years, even that became impractical because you could only charge it for a few hours every few days. Eventually, they switched their lights & fans to DC and hired pre-charged batteries on a per-night basis.

I also remember that they used their refrigerator as a wardrobe, because that’s all it was good for.

Still, I was a kid and resilient, so it didn’t bother me too much.

Kolkata (Late 80s & 90s)

Kolkata was the second stop in our summer holiday itenary & slightly better than Asansol. Electricity was more or less available, but there were sudden un-announced blackouts which the locals called “load-shedding”. Again, these would last for hours and I would lie in bed not being able to sleep. In bed, I would count down from 10 and pretend that at 0, the power would be back. When it didn’t, I would start again. Many nights, my mother would stay up fanning me with one of those Chinese fans till I fell asleep. Eventually, things became better after the power distribution in the city was privatised and today, such things are rare.

Karishma Apartments, East Delhi (1993)

Karishma Apartments (Now called Kirpal apartments) were shitty apartments, I lived in for (thankfully) 1 year around 1993. The story was, the apartment used some illegal way to apply for its electricity connection, which was eventually discovered and the electricity was disconnected for the entire complex. Most of the year I lived there, there was 0 electricity. Most people had their own generators putting away on their balconies. If I remember correctly, we shared a generator with another family and there were often disputes. Because of no electricity, there was hardly any water in the overhead tanks and there was a water tanker mafia selling water to everyone at exorbitant prices.

We lived on rent, we could have easily moved somewhere less shitty, no idea why we didn’t.

Gurgaon (2008-2015)

DLF Phase 3, U Block

There were daily power cuts during the summers. For others, it was no big deal because the power cuts were mostly in the daytime when they were all in their air-conditioned offices. I worked nights and these power cuts put a real damper on my sleep schedule.

DLF Phase 2, K Block

DLF Phase 2 being more posh than DLF Phase 3 had less power cuts, but they were still there. Still, it was not that bad.

Sector 22

We lived on one floor of a 3 floor house on rent for a few years. This was probably the shittiest house we have ever lived in. The landlords were kindly, but what they call “leechad“. They had 3 electricity connections for 3 floors, but chose to use 2 connections for one (their own) floor and the third connection was shared among the other 2 floors. Consequently, when we used the Air Conditioning, it would frequently overload and blow something on the electricity pole outside. The electricity people refused to resolve such issues at night and we spent many nights waiting for the fan to stop working when the inverter battery ran out. Eventually, we had enough and we gave notice at 2:00 AM one night after another incident.

Thankfully, this was the last of my electricity woes and since then, I have managed to elevate my life above such worries.

Food & Beverage, TV Shows

Raja Rasoi aur Anya Kahaaniyan

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What is Indian food? If you ask a Caucasian, he would probably say Chicken Tikka Masala and Butter Naan. But the real answer is, there’s no one thing called “Indian Food”. How do you define it, then? That’s the question that the TV show Raja Rasoi aur Anya Kahaaniyan tries to answer. I mentioned this show briefly in my list of favourite TV shows of all time and believe that it now needs its own post.

Raja, Rasoi aur Anya Kahaaniyan is probably the most comprehensive look into what Indian food is. Each episode takes a look into a different part of Indian cuisine, divided carefully using state/region or cities. They discuss the following parameters for each of these cuisines

  • History of the cuisine
  • History of the various produce being used in these cuisines, along with their country of origin and when they came to India
  • Which meat is used where and why
  • The evolution of the cuisine over centuries
  • The role of royal families in preserving these cuisines

My favourite episodes over 4 seasons, in chronological order are the ones below

My Favourite Episodes

  1. S01E01 – Jodhpur and Jaipur
  2. S01E03 – Delhi and Rampur
  3. S01E04 – Jammu and Kashmir
  4. S01E05 – Amritsar and Punjab
  5. S01E08 – Lucknow and Mehmudabad
  6. S01E11 – Gujarat
  7. S02E01 – Hyderabad
  8. S02E04 – Telangana and Andhra Pradesh
  9. S02E05 – Pondicherry
  10. S02E06 – Kolkata
  11. S02E07 – Mangalore
  12. S02E08 – Goa
  13. S02E09 – Maharashtra
  14. S02E15 – Mumbai
  15. S02E19 – Uttarakhand
  16. S02E20 – Madhya Pradesh
  17. S03E01 – Bikaner
  18. S03E02 – Bhopal
  19. S03E03 – Kochi

Overall, it seems that the only Indian cuisine I don’t love is Eastern and North Eastern.

The narration by Manwendra Tripathy is very good and I really enjoy the appearances of Pushpesh Pant in most of the episodes.

Pushpesh Pant in Raja Rasoi aur Anya Kahaaniyan
Pushpesh Pant in Raja Rasoi aur Anya Kahaaniyan

I am watching the entire series again for the second time and really enjoying it. If you like Indian food and interested to know more about it, I definitely recommend this show. Streaming on EpicOn (All Seasons), Netflix (Only 1 season) and Discovery+ (First 3 seasons).

Also, fuck the Nagas for eating dog meat.

Music

My favourite Studio Albums

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I am a studio album guy. Playlists are not for me, nor is shuffle. I don’t like compilations either. I generally listen to music by the album and in most cases I listen to the album whole, in one sitting. Below is a list of my favourite studio albums.

The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) – Pink Floyd

The Dark Side of the Moon : Pink Floyd

There was never any real competition for the first slot in my list of favourite studio albums. I didn’t have to think twice. For me, The Dark Side of the Moon will always be as close to a perfect album that is technically possible. I can listen to this album and zone out with ease.

The only black-mark on this otherwise perfect album? – On the run. Can’t stand it and always have to skip over it. All the other tracks are just perfect in every way.

Highly recommend the Classic Albums episode on this album, narrated by Alan Parsons himself.

Rumours (1977) – Fleetwood Mac

Rumours : Fleetwood Mac

This album is rock bordering on pop. Which is why I was so surprised that I liked it so much. I listened to Dreams for the first time in Kolkata, but the first time I listened to the whole album was during a road-trip from Delhi to Chandigarh. Most of the songs are more or less perfect. My favourites are Dreams, Go your own way, The Chain & You make loving fun.

Even more fascinating is the background behind this album, the breakups, drugs and internal turmoils the band members were going through during recording. Highly recommend the Classic Albums episode on this album.

Animals (1977) – Pink Floyd

Animals : Pink Floyd

There’s absolutely no bad track in this album. All the songs are more or less perfect. But my absolute favourites are Dogs and Sheep.

This album always reminds me of our first Think Floyd concert.

The Long Run (1979) – Eagles

The Long Run : Eagles

This is my favourite studio album from Eagles. I really like the tracks The Long Run, In the City, King of Hollywood, Heartache Tonight & The Sad cafe. Additionally, I can’t tell you why is perhaps one of my most favourite songs ever. Beautiful album. So much soul.

This is also the last Eagles album before Don Felder was booted from the band.

Hybrid Theory (2000) – Linkin Park

Hybrid Theory : Linking Park

I am not into the genre that Linkin Park represents. But Linkin park is undoubtedly a big part of my college years and there are hundreds of memories associated with its albums. Out of them, Hybrid theory is perhaps the one that defines Linkin Park for me. My favourite tracks are Papercut, One Step Closer, Crawling, In the End, Pushing me away and My December. The last track only appears on the Japanese version of the album and which I heard through piracy. I probably won’t have been into them if I had heard them for the first time in any other stage of my life.

So what if the instruments are simplistic? They sound good and that’s all that matters.

I still listen to them but only when I go for runs. Transports me back to my college days.

The Division Bell (1994) – Pink Floyd

The Division Bell : Pink Floyd

This album gets a lot of flak for “being terrible”, but even though it is far moved from the 70s and 80s Pink Floyd sound, I still love it. This album is more David Gilmour than any other Pink Floyd album before it. It shows in the soulful long-winded solos. My favourite tracks from this album are Marooned, Wearing the inside out, Coming back to life, Keep talking and High Hopes.

High hopes transports me back to college days to a specific night when Whoreko was staying with us to appear for some exams and he showed me his Sony Walkman series phone. I chose High Hopes to test the music quality and was blown away by the amazing bass.

Coming back to life takes me back to my Kolkata days, going to Someplace Else and listening to The Hip Pocket.

Azadi (1997) – Junoon

Azadi : Junoon

This album was my introduction to Rock music. And what an album! And from Pakistan, of all places. Amazing soulful sufi-inspired music with rock riffs.

I remember falling asleep to this album every night listening to it on my Aiwa Walkman. This was when I stayed in Durgapur. I also remember once hooking up my radio antenna to our apartment window and catching FM radio from Kolkata and this was the track playing.

My favourite tracks from this album are Sayonee, Meri awaz suno, Mukh gae & Lal meri pat.

Too bad the band couldn’t continue their success after this album.

Wish you were here (1975) – Pink Floyd

Wish you were here : Pink Floyd

This album is carried by one track and that is Shine on you crazy diamond. At one point of time, I listened to this song every single day. The track starts out slow and soulful, picks up tempo, then goes slow again.

The title song is good, too.

The Man-Machine (1978) – Kraftwerk

The Man-Machine : Kraftwerk

I am not into electronic music, but I love Kraftwerk. The Man-machine is an album of epic proportions. Just like Azadi, I listened to it while falling asleep in Durgapur. Every song in this album is great and I will never be tired of listening to it.

After writing this, I realise that 6 out of my 9 favourite studio albums all came out within the 7 years between 1973 and 1979. What a time it must have been to be alive back then!

Rant

Oh! How I regret getting an eSim!

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My friends know about my eSim suffering for quite some time, as I have been doing constant RR about it for months now. Still, I thought I should put my ordeal in words to document it for my future self.

Why eSIM?

The story starts some time in 2020. Me and the wife were living in India, happy with Jio SIM cards for our Indian numbers. Both numbers were registered under my name. Then we found out we were moving to Bangkok. I was not sure if I could get eSIMs for our Bangkok numbers and our phones could accept only 1 physical SIM card at a time. So I decided to convert our Jio SIM cards to eSIMs before going to Bangkok.

I regret doing that, to this day.

Turns out, it is ridiculously easy to get eSIMs in Bangkok. Never mind, no harm done. But then, I realised we could not buy new phones because the Indian eSIMs can not be transferred to new phones. Never mind, we don’t need new phones anytime soon. I thought I could convert back our SIMs to physical SIMs the next time I went to India. Then we would be free to buy new phones in Bangkok.

The Second Mistake

Then I went ahead and killed my wife’s phone (And the eSIM inside it) attempting underwater photography.

Not mine, PC: Reader’s Digest

We use our Indian phone numbers to authenticate Indian banking transactions and what not (Indian society is built on OTPs). It was imperative we replaced her SIM as soon as possible. Suddenly, the pressure to go to India and replace our SIMs was real and immediate.

The Process

The process is pretty straight forward. You walk in to a Jio store, the personnel use an app to do biometric verification and click a photo of you. Then the request is sent to a back-end team for verification and once approved, your new SIM is activated.

The (attempted) rectification

I booked the cheapest tickets possible and travelled to Kolkata within weeks. I thought it would be a simple transaction and I would soon return with physical SIMs for both our numbers. My wife would get her number back and I would be free to buy a new phone. How wrong I was.

After a sleepless night travelling, I woke up early morning to find a Jio store and request a SIM replacement. It took them only 20 minutes to issue me new physical SIMs for both our numbers and was told they would be activated within 4 hours. Happily I went on my way. Soon, the 4 hours were up and the physical SIMs were still not activated. So we went to the Jio store to follow up and were told the requests were rejected due to “photo mismatch”.

I was flabbergasted. The only reason I could think of was when I had bought these numbers, I had longer hair and now, I had recently shaved my head. Either ways, I begged the staff to do the process again. We waited half an hour and again – rejected. With time running out for my return flight, I dis-heartedly bought a new number for my wife and left India with my tail between my legs.

The Aftermath

My wife had to travel to India to change her phone number with government agencies and bank accounts. I still have an eSim for my India number. If my phone were to die tomorrow, I would have to go to India again with no guarantee that I would get a replacement SIM.

Also, I cannot buy the iPhone 14 Pro Max 512Gb Deep Purple that I so desperately want.

All because of one mistake. Fuck my Life!

PS: US eSim users don’t face these issues because in the US, eSims can be transferred freely between different phones using bluetooth.

Nostalgia, Rant

Durga Puja

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Durga Puja (Worship of Durga) is the ultimate festival of the Bengali people. Although you cannot deny the religious nature of Durga Puja, it is as much a cultural and a social festival as it is a religious one; which explains my interest in it. Being an Atheist, it is the cultural part which draws me. It is my favourite festival of all time and is something I look forward to, all year, every year.

Durga Puja is celebrated in Autumn, on a date decided by the Hindu calendar, either in late September or early October. It coincides with the North Indian concept of Navratri, but unlike Navratri, we don’t punish ourselves by restricting our diets or eating vegetarian food. Unlike Navratri, Durga Puja is a time to meet people, feast like there’s no tomorrow & gorge on your favourite food, mostly meat.

Durga Puja
Durga, PC: Indiatimes

The Origins (For me)

My memory of the festival from when I was young is that I had no interest in leaving my house to go and see it. In fact, when I lived in Panchkula, one of the Puja committees even awarded me a prize (Set of Sherlock Holmes books, which I treasure to this day) for academic performance. I refused to attend and someone later brought it home for me.

The first time I remember attending a Durga Puja in earnest was when Ritwik Mandal took me to one in Nagpur. I remember he insisted that we have the puja lunch (bhog). They didn’t have cutlery; you were expected to eat rice with your hand. I was struggling and an elderly couple sitting next to us started making fun of me in Bengali, not knowing I could understand them. I took the higher ground and didn’t abuse them.

Slowly, as I attended more and more Pujas, my interest went up. I remember going to the Maddox Square puja once with my cousins when I was in Kolkata. We reached the venue well past midnight; still the atmosphere was electric. There were thousands of people there, chatting with family and friends. The smell of food being prepared wafted through the air. I hung out there for a few hours and headed home. I had not seen anything like it before.

Regular Patron

Eventually, I became a regular patron of Durga Puja, when I moved to Gurgaon and my parents moved there, too. My father had no interest in it, so me and my mother explored the city in search for new Pandals. After marriage, I drew my wife into the mix, too. Slowly we developed our favourite Pandals, although we would go Pandal-hopping to all the major ones in Gurgaon as well as Delhi. When our daughter was born, we got her hooked, too and we developed a predictable schedule.

  1. Few weeks before the start of the Pujas, we would go to Slice of Bengal in CR Park to begin our shopping. My wife and daughter would both get Bengali sarees and other clothing.
  2. We would attend the pre-Pujo fest at the Chittaranjan Park Bangiya Samaj.
  3. On day 5, we would go to the Pandal at Kashmere Gate, see that it is not ready yet and return home disappointed. By next year we would forget this and do the same thing again.
  4. On day 6, we would cover some of the Gurgaon pandals.
  5. Day 7, we would go Pandal Hopping at CR Park in the morning (Including Navapalli, my daughter’s favourite), then go to Oh! Calcutta for lunch and then return home stuffed. In the evenings, we would go to some more pandals in Gurgaon, including my favourite at the DLF Phase 1 community center.
  6. More of the same on Day 8
  7. On the 9th day, we would go to all our favourite ones once again and then bid a tearful goodbye till next year.

I much prefer Delhi & Gurgaon Durga Pujas to Kolkata ones (which are complete carnage).

Disappointing 2021

Durga Puja in 2020 was a subdued affair because of COVID, but there was something, at least. This year’s Durga Puja was a big disappointment. Normally there’s one Bengali group organising it in Bangkok, but this year, there’s nothing. There are no Bengali restaurants in Bangkok either (There are Bangladeshi, but its not the same). So we are sitting at home, watching it on TV.

Hope I am able to enjoy my favourite festival next year, again.

Rant

What is my Hometown?

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When I was making a Facebook account recently, it asked me what my Hometown was. I thought about it for a while, but didn’t have an answer. Looks like I have had such a nomadic life, I don’t have a Hometown.

Here’s a list:

YearsCityDuration
1985-1985Bhubaneshwar, Odisha<1 year
1985-1985Kolkata, West Bengal <1 year
1986-1989Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh~3 years
1989-1990Dhani, Madhya Pradesh~1 year
1990-1990Dewas, Madhya Pradesh <1 year
1990-1994Indore, Madhya Pradesh~4 years
1994-1997New Delhi, Delhi~3 years
1997-1998Durgapur, West Bengal~1 year
1998-2002Panchkula, Haryana~4 years
2002-2007Nagpur, Maharashtra~5 years
2007-2008Kolkata, West Bengal~1 year
2008-2021Gurgaon, Haryana~13 years
2021-CurrentBangkok, Thailand —
Nomadic Lifestyle
Not my hometown
Sucks, indeed

This list just covers the cities I have lived in. Even within these cities, I have sometimes lived in up to 3 different places. What is my Hometown, then?

Bhubaneshwar, because I was born there, but lived only a few months?

Kolkata, because that’s where my parents are from, but lived only a year?

Gurgaon, where I lived the longest and have my own place but don’t ever plan to return to?

Thankfully, I am off Facebook, so don’t have to answer this question anymore.

Hate, Rant

Kolkata – Still the City of Sorrow

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This is not the first time I am ranting about this city. See these

How to win a cricket match

Why Calcutta sucks…

Kolkata

P.D.A. in Kolkata

Last weekend, I got the opportunity to visit the city after a span of 2.5 years. Here’re a few things I noticed that have changed and some things that have not
Changed:-

  1. Some signs of development are showing up (2 new Metro Lines)
  2. More cars on the roads
Not Changed:-
  1. The filth still exists everywhere and in greater quantities
  2. People still bathe on the streets
  3. The cars still honk like crazy; driving etiquettes are non-existent
  4. City is still severely polluted, buses still run on cheap Kerosene/Diesel Mix
  5. People are still Lazy, un-friendly & in a state of perpetual anger
  6. Kolkata Airport is the worst airport in the country at the moment

The city has a quality of bringing a lethargic feeling even to high-spirited individuals. I used to leave the place I was staying at to go out multiple times a day, only to feel tired in some time and come back.
I had given some thought to shift there in the past few months (to save on money), but all those thoughts are now gone.