From Dumdum, we proceeded to Ant R’s bari (bari means home in bengali) at Tollygunge, South Calcutta. The whole city seemed to have come to a standstill as we could hardly see any crowd on the streets save an odd traffic jam resulting from the lack of traffic signals (yeah strange but true…Cal doesn’t have very many traffic signals). Passing through Salt Lake (the new business destination of Calcutta akin to Bombay’s Bandra-Kurla Complex), we saw the Golf Park and the Royal Calcutta Turf Club (RCTC) both rightly labelled the ‘lungs’ of the city due to its lush greenery. But what caught our eye were 2 distinct things unseen in Bombay – vast open spaces replete with water bodies and clean roads). Yeas you read that right. Calcutta is clean. In my 10 days I have travelled quite the length and breadth of Calcutta from the new city to the old but everywhere I found the roads clean. Well not spic and span but keeping Bombay as the yardstick, it is much cleaner. And relatively free of potholes. Also no unnecessary digging. For this my thumbs up goes to KMC (Kolkata Municipal Corporation). As Ant R said, “am glad you found it clean, at least it justifies my paying taxes”. Wish Bombayites could say that.

As I mentioned before Calcutta has an abundance of individual houses - row houses and bungalows as against buildings and residential complexes (the newer parts of the city are however going the concrete structure way). One thing that struck us as curious was the lack of a garden area between the houses and the main gates. Now in Bombay even the most cloistered buildings, row houses, bungalows have an open space from the main entrance to the structure. This was evidently not so here. The entrance almost immediately led to the doors of the house as though the owners / builders were particular about conserving space. Be it individual houses or buildings, there was no concept of a parking area (barring the new constructions). Some homes did have a garage, but most hardly had space to move about forget manouvering a vehicle. And since most lanes were narrow it was surprising how & where people parked their vehicles. SK & I concluded that perhaps they had no vehicles of their own and hence need not bother.

After travelling about an hour or so, we reached Ant R’s home (which is located in a maze of narrow lanes and bylanes). Hat’s off to her…with my sense of direction I would have needed a GPS to locate my own home . Ant R’s mother received us and we saw aunty after almost 14 years. Aunty wa sthe same even after all these years…pretty as most Bengali women. What surprised us though was her vivcaity and chirpiness. Now when we met aunty (for the first and last time), we were in Std. X way back in 1995. at that time aunty came across as someone very strict and after all these years to see a different avtaar of hers was mind boggling. SK & I exchanges numerous quizzical glances and concluded that probably we hadn’t gotten to know her better then and hence the misconception.

Anyway after a scrumtious Bengali lunch of fried karela, tarkari (dry vegetable dish), dal and maach bhaat (fish & rice) and a short nap later, we set out for ‘the’ Pujo activity – Pandal Hopping.