A Leisurely Sunday in Calcutta: Mass at St. Thomas' Catholic Church, Stroll Along Park Street, Last-Minute Shopping at New Market

 Calcutta

Sunday, August 28, 2022

A Leisurely Sunday in Calcutta: Mass at St. Thomas' Catholic Church, Stroll Along Park Street, Last-Minute Shopping at New Market

    I woke up, as usual, at the crack of dawn, in a comfortable bed at Hotel Elgin Fairlawn where I would spend my last night. After reading in bed, chatting on the phone to Llew and checking my email and Twitter time line, I checked mass timings at St. Thomas' Catholic Church which, by my estimation, was merely a 15-20 minute stroll from my hotel. The internet informed me that Mass in English was at 8.30 and 10.30 am.  Deciding to have a good breakfast before Mass (yes, I know, it's a bit sacriligious), I washed and showered and did most of my packing before going downstairs for breakfast.

Full English Breakfast (Kind of) at the Hotel Fairlawn:

    I enjoy nothing as much as I do an FEB (a Full English Breakfast) especially when I am on holiday or on the road. I remember the really good ones that the Fairlawn used to serve in the days of Violet Smith. Under new management now, you can still get a fairly decent one, but there are no pork products anymore. This means that you can order Chicken Salami and Chicken Sausage instead of bacon and pork sausages. Let me assure you that they simply do not (and cannot, I suppose) taste the same. Secondly, instead of getting a large platter with your eggs, salami, sausage, grilled mushrooms, grilled tomatoes and baked beans all crowded together, you get a plate with scrambled eggs, a hash brown and half a grilled tomato.  All the other 'accompaniments' that you order are brought separately to your table in little containers! Anyway, I was not one to scoff at such large portions and decided to plunge right in. I also ordered white toast with butter, a plate of mango (to end my meal) and a glass of watermelon juice to begin. I need not tell you that the next meal I ate was at 6.00 pm when I was on the aircraft headed back home to Bombay!

Mass at St. Thomas' Church:

    Breakfast done (yes, I did feel a tad over-stuffed), I began my walk to St. Thomas' Catholic Church for the 10.30 am Mass. I used the map app on my phone to get there along the seedy side streets behind my hotel--Sudder to Chowringhee Lane (the Number 36 as in the film simply does not exist, so do not go looking for it), to Kyd to Park Street. I crossed the road over at the corner of Fleury's and entered Middleton Row and could see the church at the end of the street. It was a real pleasure to take this walk on a Sunday when the traffic and the human movement were barely present. It was nothing like the chaos I have seen in the last couple of days. 

    And let me tell you that the non-touristy parts of Calcutta (which is 95% of the city) are just awful. It is dirty, crowded, dirty, poorly maintained, dirty, stinking, dirty, slimy, dirty. Okay, you get the idea.  Hutment structures line almost every street--even those in the heart of the city. And because people live in these makeshift dwellings, there are fires and cooking pots on every footpath, dirty cooking or dish water emptied into the running gutters, loads of stinking sewage everywhere. There are also a lot of public toilets and they smell disgusting. I think it would not be an exaggeration to say that most of Calcutta is like one big stinking slum. It is truly appalling, even for someone who now lives in Bombay. If I have been posting items on Twitter and here in my blog that have sung the praises of the beautiful colonial parts of Calcutta, it is only because those have (so far) remained untouched by the detritus of poverty-stricken human habitation. I can only wonder how long they will remain pristine.

    So, after sauntering along at leisure and appreciating the lack of human or vehicular activity, I arrived at St. Thomas' Church that probably dates from the mid-Victorian period. It is not as old or impressive as Calcutta's Anglican churches, but it has plenty to attract the visitor from huge statues of St. Thomas and St. Peter at the entrance of the church to a striking stained glass window behind the altar.  In a colony in which the majority of the rulers were Anglican, it is refreshing to come upon some marble mortuary monuments on the wall that remember colonial Catholics who died serving King and Country. I noticed that a couple of these folks had French last names, however--so they were probably French colonials living in the colony of Bengal. There are no pews in this church--instead each worshipper has an individual chair (in beautiful polished, black ebony) with a padded kneeler in front. 

    Mass began on the dot of 10.30am. Because I had arrived 20 minutes early, I had time to survey the church inside with its huge seated statue of Christ the King in heavy gilding. In fact, there is a lot of gilding in this church, which leads me to believe that it was newly painted. There was a nice choir at the side comprising of two Anglo-Indian teenagers--two of them sang and one of them (the young man) played the keyboard. I was struck by the diversity of the congregation: there were loads of Anglo-Indians of mixed racial descent from the surrounding neighborhood as this warren of little lanes was once the stronghold of the city's Anglo-Indians (most of them have emigrated to the West or to Australia or New Zealand and only small numbers now remain). There were loads of Bengali Catholics and dozens of Hill Country folk, easily distinguished by their Mongol features. They are probably migrants from the hill towns of Darjeeling and Kurseong where missionaries in colonial times did vigorous work and gained many conversions. The priest had a Bengali accent and was dark-skinned enough to lead me to believe that he was a native of the state.

    Mass was very absorbing indeed. The readings were wonderfully done (both lectors, a man and a woman, had Anglo-Indian accents), the homily was interesting (and short and sweet) and the choir and its hymns were just wonderful. After Mass, an announcement was made that a retreat would begin and we were all invited to attend. I had to leave, of course, but I did say Hello to the priest who stood outside meeting and greeting his parishioners. 

    I noticed that just next door to the church was a gate with a plaque that said 'Loreto College' on it. I wondered if this was the same Loreto College that was supposed to be the finest college for girls in Calcutta, at least girls of my generation. I took pictures of it and sent them to my friend Laureen who lives in Connecticut and who, I remember, had graduated from Loreto. She came back confirming that this was indeed her college and that St. Thomas' was the church in which college students, like herself, heard Mass. 

    Down the quiet side lane I walked until I reached the busy bits of Park Street. I entered Fleury's just to take in the Sunday morning brunchy atmosphere of the place. I was much too full to order anything and so a quick look later, I was out again. Other places into which I stepped were Trinca's, the restaurant in which so many great names associated with the golden age of Indian jazz (Pam Crane, Louis Banks) once performed, but it is also where Usha Sammi (later Usha Iyer and then Usha Uthup) got her start. There are pictures of these singing stars all over the walls of the restaurant. Finally, I ended my browsing of Park Street with a peek into the large Oxford Bookstore as I have never met a bookstore I did not like.

Last-Minute Shopping at New Market:

    I had been thinking for the past couple of days that I should have bought more than just the Bandel cheese from J. Johnson when I was at New Market, two days ago. Indeed, I had a list and when I reached the Market, I headed straight to J. Johnson from which I bought twists of barley sugar, mango cheese, guava cheese and Kasundi (mustard) sauce. I also stopped at Nahoum's bakery for chocolate fudge and vanilla fudge and with these goodies really heavy in my hands, I walked straight back to my hotel. New Market also was much more pleasant a place to be on a Sunday morning and I was delighted with the overall old-world ambience of it all.

A Long Nap in my Hotel:

    Laden with my packages and smarting with the heat and humidity, I decided to have a lie-down in my cool, air-conditioned room after I had packed my last-minute buys into my case. But, I guess the heat and the gadding about of the past four days had taken their toll. What I expected to be a 15 minute nap turned out to a solid 90 minute one! When I awoke, it was almost 2.00 pm--just enough time for me to pack up all my things, ask the Reception for my bill and call my Uber to get to the airport. I hoped to be at Dum Dum airport at 3.30 pm for my 5.30 pm flight as I did need to check in a bag on this segment of my travels. 

Journey to the Airport:

    My Uber did arrive about fifteen minutes later, after I had settled my bill, and bid goodbye to a hotel that I really and truly love. The water logging of the previous afternoon had disappeared completely and you would be hard pressed to believe that there had been knee-deep flash floods in the city only yesterday. It is always a pleasure to try to get anywhere on a Sunday and my cab ate up the miles without any traffic hitches. In fact, the city looked much more appealing in the less chaotic atmosphere on a quiet Sunday afternoon when most Bengalis were getting in their Sunday siestas. 

    I arrived at the airport with no problems at all and easily found my Vistara Airlines check-in counter. I was, in fact, one of the first passengers to check-in (web check-in before all domestic Indian flights now seems to be mandatory) and I had loads of time to browse in the shops at the airport. It is a very lovely airport indeed and there are lots of interesting wares should one be inclined to buy (which I was not). My flight was announced with a slight delay of 15 minutes, boarding was swift and well-organized and Vistara actually served a meal on board (a chicken roll, a small serving of pasta in tomato sauce and chocolate ice-cream for dessert).  I was absolutely delighted to get some splendid pictures from the aircraft as we left the city and climbed higher into the skies. Despite the fact that it was twilight and light was fast fading, I got superb pictures of the Maidan, of Eden Garden cricket stadium, of the Victoria Memorial set in its green grounds and of the Hoogly River with the Vidyasagar Dam spanning its two banks. I was simply thrilled. 

    We touched down in Bombay, twenty minutes ahead of schedule at 8.10 pm, which left me enough time to pick up my case from the conveyor belt and find out how to get to the auto rickshaw stand that would then get me home. It was 9.30 pm when I reached home, 10.30 pm by the time I finished unpacking and eating my dinner (soup and a sandwich that I hastily prepared at home) and after a long call to Chriselle and another to Llew, I called it a night.

    What a delightful and deeply adventurous four days I'd had in Calcutta. But how pleased I was to return to the home comforts of my own bed and bathroom!

    Thank you for following me on this armchair journey. Until the road rises up to meet me again, I bid you farewell.                    

Oh Calcutta! First Day Exploring India’s Former Capital!

Oh Calcutta! First Day Exploring India’s Former Colonial Capital

Thursday, August 25, 2022

Waking up at 4.00 am (after having set my alarm for 4.30 am) is a sure sign of ignited nerves and I was a bundle of nerves as I left my flat in Bandra at 5.00 am to stand on the corner of my street waiting for a yellow cab or rickshaw to take me to the airport for my 7.00 am flight. Just when it seemed as if all the cab and rick drivers were fast asleep, a rick came along to whisk me off to the airport where I reached within 20 minutes as we flew along the highway.

Check in was a breeze as I did not check in a bag but took it as a carry on and sank down to enjoy the long ride along the tarmac to the aircraft followed by a non-eventful but very comfortable flight. It took two and a half hours during which time I enjoyed my own delicious home made sandwich with a bottle of water (meals were available for sale on the Go First aircraft (my first time flying with this airline). I read 84 Charing Cross Road on my IPad during the flight and almost finished the very short novella by the time we landed. I managed to take pix of take off in Bandra with the Sealink and the Bay of Worli plus good pix of the Brahmaputra river (which becomes the Hooghly river in West Bengal), of the green paddy fields of the state (brought to mind all those films of Satyajit Ray that I have seen over the years) and the urban density of the sprawling city of Calcutta. Wonderful touch down and landing!

It took me half an hour to get a pre-paid cab at the airport as there were too many people in the line and too few vehicles available, but when I did (for Rs. 300), I was dropped off easily at my Hotel Elgin Fairlawn on Sudder Street right in the heart of old Calcutta. The Hotel is like a green oasis in the midst of a busy, bustling neighborhood and dates from the late 1700s. I have been staying here on my trips to Calcutta since the days when it was run by the venerable Armenian Violet Smith and later her daughter Jennifer. After Violet’s death, it was sold to the Oberoi’s and definitely looks much more spiffy now than it did in the old days when it exuded shabby chic!

Entering the lobby is like returning home for me. The old-world graciousness of the staff, the arrival of a magical welcome drink (I so needed it after my hot and long journey from the airport during which time traffic simply crawled) and the fact that I was instantly upgraded to a deluxe double room because I am a frequent user of this hotel, did wonders for my spirits. After finding my room at the end of a long verandah on the top floor, I stashed my stuff away, used the facilities and left. It was about 12. 15 pm by then, long after I had actually expected to reach.  Still, without wasting any further time, I took directions from Manish, the nice receptionist, and made my way towards a half day of sight seeing.

Taking the Metro to the Victoria Memorial:

I love Calcutta’s Metro system and by the time I bought my ticket for the princely sum of Rs. 5, and stood at the platform waiting for my train, I felt as if I was back in Manhattan again and waiting for my subway train! It was spanking clean and gracious. I was in the train for just two stops—Maidan and the Rabindra Sadan (my stop). I followed instructions to the T (given by Manish), but I had to say that the walk from the station to my destination was LONG and since it was hot and really humid, I was tired within ten minutes of walking. Asking all along the way for the entrance to the Victoria Memorial, I finally found it a good half hour later, by which time I was already quite wiped out.

Exploring the Gardens of the Victoria Memorial:

I needed an urgent sit-down and I found it on a bench overlooking one of the reflecting pools of the vast gardens that surround the Victoria Memorial. It is truly a spectacular monument and I simply could not get enough of it on my camera. I photographed it from every angle to take in the glory of Viceroy Curzon’s vision for a memorial monument that would commemorate the recently-dead Queen Victoria (which makes me wonder…can you imagine what they are going to build after our current Queenie pops it—longest reigning British monarch and all that ???) It was a good time to eat my other sandwich and down half a bottle of water as I needed to rehydrate myself urgently. I was losing moisture through perspiration at an alarming rate as the humidity was so high. When I felt refreshed in the shade overlooking the gorgeous building, I walked all the way around it to arrive at the main entrance as I had arrived on the south side past the sculptured monuments to Edward VII, Victoria’s son. From the main entrance, one sees the grand bronze sculpture of the seated Victoria sculpted by George Frampton and just on the other side, is the grand marble sculpture of Curzon whose brain child this building is. Meanwhile, there are gorgeous fountains, roses in lush flower beds, reflecting pools—all the elements that make for grand Edwardian gardens. I loved it and took it all in.

Inside the Victoria Memorial:

It is funny how I visit this building on every trip I make to Calcutta (as I love it so much) but never remember much of its interior details. So it is always with a sense of awe and wonder that I take it in each visit. The grand Rotunda (with its soaring dome) in the style of Andrea Palladio’s rotundas the world over, the Greek columns that hold it up, the dentil molding, and at the very top (simply too far, in my opinion, for the human eye to take in details), the half moon mosaics that record key moments in the life of Victoria—from the day she received news that she had become queen, to her coronation to her death bed. Needless to say, Prince Albert features in a lot of the depictions and I was stunned and wished I had a pair of binoculars with which to take in the minute details at the top.

Next, I made a bee line for the gallery that holds the collection of colonial paintings by the uncle-nephew team of Thomas and William Daniels. They arrived in India in the 18th century and traveled around the newly-acquired colony of Bengal documenting their progress as they painted monuments, landscapes, people. They have left us a brilliant record of India in that era. I was disappointed that only a handful of their works were on display—on previous visits, I have seen a far bigger collection.  However, in honor of the 75th anniversary of India’s Independence, most of the galleries were taken up new exhibitions to mark the occasion. There was a huge one of Calcutta’s most famous son—Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and the army he created in Singapore to overthrow the British by using tactics far removed from the non-violent ones advocated by Gandhi.  In another gallery upstairs (mercifully air-conditioned), there was a whole other exhibition on the attempts by Indians based overseas in the 19th and early 20th centuries to either muster support for Indian Independence or to overthrow British rule in some form. The history buff in me found all of this fully fascinating and it was with great difficulty that I managed to tear myself away after carefully reading all of the curatorial notes (in three languages, English, Hindi and Bengali). It was all beautifully curated and I felt less disappointed that room had been made for these new exhibitions by removing the majority of the colonial paintings as well as the section of Indian paintings that, in the past, had featured some of the great painters of the Bengali Renaissance.  There was so much to read, so many pictures to see, several videos playing on a loop in many corners of the vast galleries and so many visitors (I was thrilled) that filled the space. 

When I was done, I left the building and, asking for directions, made my way to the next item on my agenda: a visit to St. Paul’s (Anglican) Cathedral that is literally just across the road. 

Visiting St. Paul’s Cathedral:

St. Paul’s Cathedral is the oldest and most striking Gothic structure in Calcutta. It dates from the 1700s and is an impressive, pure white building with a crenelated central tower. I have visited it before because I love the quiet serenity of its interior, but mainly because I  love one of its stained glass windows. It was designed and executed by Edward Burne-Jones, one of the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of whom I am a huge fan. Inside, the Cathedral reminds me of St. Thomas’ Cathedral in Bombay.  It is full of mortuary monuments in marble, including a giant one of Bishop Hebbar who introduced Anglo-Indian schools in Calcutta. Photography is strictly prohibited inside the church and I had to find special permission at the church office to be able to take a picture of it for my fiend Dr. Fiona Mann, who is a scholar of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in the UK. Naturally, I too wanted a picture of it as I am, as I said above, a huge fan of the Pre-Raphaelites. Mission accomplished, I left the church and found my way to the exit.

I could not face the idea of walking back in the exhausting heat and humidity back to my hotel but I could urgently do with a nap by this time. So I hailed a cab and made my way back to my hotel, where I ran into my friend, Dr. Robyn Andrews who had arrived for the conference from Massey University in New Zealand. We had a happy reunion and since I was dying for a cup of tea, by this point, I chinwagged with her for a bit while ordering a tea tray which I sat in the restaurant and enjoyed with two cookies. It was the best pick-me-up and just a little later, I returned to my room where I sank down in the blissful air-conditioned coolness and promptly took a nap.

Exploring New Market and Finding Dinner at Park Street:

It was exactly 6.00 pm when I decided to leave my room again and continue sightseeing. I had two more items on my agenda for the day: a visit to New Market and Park Street. I was determined to fit them both in before calling it a day.

New Market, whose real name is the SS Hogg Market (Sir Stewart Hogg Market), is just a five minute walk from my hotel and I easily found my way there. It is a huge covered market in the fashion of Crawford Market in Bombay and is probably of the same vintage—ie. Late 1800s. This one was erected by S Hogg who was knighted by the British.  

You could spend a whole day in New Market because you can, literally, get everything under the sun here. But I was focused on three shops: Nahoum’s, a Jewish bakery dating from the late 1800s which is really popular at XMas time for its incredible plum cake; Chamba Lama, a Tibetan store that sells handicrafts and is known for its semi-precious stones set in silver jewelry; J.Johnson, a grocery store known for selling Bandel Cheese to which Indians were introduced by the Portuguese. After they were taught by the Portuguese how to cause milk to curdle in order to create cheese, the Bengalis used the curds to fashion all sorts of sweets—hence, the Bengali sweets such as rosgolla, Cham Cham and sponge ‘sandwich’—also sondesh. I decided to buy some cheese to taste. I found it very salty. It is sold in small discs, in plain and smoked varieties. I bought the smoked sort. My friend Ashley told me about this cheese and requested me to buy him some—which I did. From Nahoum’s, I bought rich plum cake and light fruit cake to take to my Dad and Russel, as well as vanilla and chocolate fudge and a rum ball for my dessert. I have to say that I enjoyed strolling around the market, but I was already so tired from my morning wandering that I kept my rambles to the minimum. When my purchases were in the bag (literally!), I walked out and made my way to Park Street which was a 15 minute walk away. 

Park Street was completely different from the New Market area. It is hip and spiffy and filled with expensive designer stores, boutiques, restaurants that had their heyday in the 1950s, 60s and 70s and confection shops such as Fleury’s. I passed by all of them to take in their ambience which was all the more enticing with the bright lights switched on by this time. However, I was focused mainly on buying myself a kathi kebab roll that had been introduced to Calcutta by a restaurant called Nizam’s in New Market. The same Nizam’s rolls were touted as being really good at a small hole-in-the-wall place on Park Street called Kusum Rolls and it was there that I bought a mutton kathi roll to go. I had to wait for about 15 minutes as the place was mobbed and offered only take-out service. With my roll in the bag, I walked along the main road to my hotel.

I was really knackered by this point and all I could think of was throwing myself on my bed in the wonderful cool serenity of my room. I had only enough energy to eat my dinner and my dessert, chat briefly with Llew, brush and floss my teeth and get straight into bed. 

It had been a hugely tiring day but a hugely productive one as well and I was grateful that I had such a lovely place in which to rejuvenate myself through a very early night.

Until tomorrow…

Oh Calcutta! Arrival, Settling In Fairlawn Hotel, New Market, Park Street at Xmas and Dinner at Kewlie’s.

Thursday, December 18, 2018

Puri-Calcutta

Namaste from Calcutta!

An early-morning alarm on my phone at 4. 30 am woke me up in Puri on our last morning in Orissa. We had a 5.45 am train from Puri station—the Shatabdi Express—to Calcutta, where we would arrive at 1. 30 pm. We had also arranged for a cab to take us from our hotel to the station at 5.00 am and the driver arrived as planned. 

Train Journey to Calcutta:

   I was really excited to be riding the Great Indian Peninsula Railway as I had many happy memories from my childhood of journeys of several days taken with my family as we traveled across the length and breath of India in separate family coupes that had offered us space and privacy for journeys that were often two or three days long! So when I entered our air-conditioned chair car and found the chair that I would occupy for the next several hours, I was a tad disappointed.  The entire train had a very shabby look about it. It definitely needed to be redecorated, reupholstered and, in general, better shod. As Nafisa and Hosefa were seated a few rows away from me, I gave myself up to the thrill of reading my Helen Fielding Bridget Jones’ book and typing as I had my IPad with me.

There was frequent service on the train starting with bed-tea served with two Marie biscuits.  This was followed by a breakfast tray of two slices of bread, a two-egg masala omelette served with tomato ketchup and a bar of Kit Kat chocolate. The train made stops at Bhubaneshwar and Cuttack (former capital of the state) and on a series of bridges, we crossed the mighty Mahanadi river on which the huge Hirakud Dam had been a pride and joy of post-colonial India. It was not long before we crossed the state border into West Bengal which I could tell easily by the fact that the Oriya script proclaiming the names of the stations changed to Bengali.

At lunch time, we were served the most disappointing lunch you can imagine—mine was supposed to be Fried Rice with Chilli Chicken but I cannot even tell you how tasteless it was. I barely ate anything at all. The Anglo-Indian writer Bridget White-Kumar has written books on Anglo-Indian cuisine that includes sections on Railway Mutton Curry and Dak Bungalow Chicken! Hopefully, the dishes would not taste like this!

  Among the many Bengali stations that we passed, I became extremely excited by our arrival in Kharagpur, about an hour and a half from Calcutta. Kharagpur had been an Anglo-Indian stronghold during imperial times because it was one of the hubs of the Bengal-Nagpur branch and a huge Railway colony had sprung up just beyond the station where the typical culture of the Anglo-Indians had flourished for decades before they emigrated en masse from India after Independence.  In the post-colonial period, the development of one of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) in this town had put Kharagpur on the student map. I dearly wish I could have actually stepped down and explored the town—but, of course, all we had was ten minutes there while I took photographs of the station.

     

Arrival in Calcutta:

  It was not long before we arrived at our destination—the great city of Calcutta. By 2.00 pm, we were fighting huge crowds on the platform as we tried to make our way out of the station.  We had arrived at Howrah Bridge Station (the other big Calcutta railway hub is Sealdah) and both Nafisa and Hosefa who were seeing the massive expanse of the Howrah Bridge for the first time, were filled with excitement.  I was arriving in Calcutta for about the fourth time in my life and I had some familiarity with the city. Howrah Bridge, which has also given its name to a famous Bollywood movie of the 1950s or 60s, stands astride the mighty Hooghly River—the body of water that had contributed through history to the immense wealth of the city.  

     Nafisa’s cousin Juzer was waiting to receive us at the station and he led us to the Uber taxi stand from where they hired a vehicle that took them off to their place in Entally. I also hired an Uber that took me to my hotel—the Fairlawn—on Sudder Street in the heart of downtown Calcutta. This is the fourth time I am staying in this gorgeous hotel that I adore, both for its unbeatable location (you can walk to most places of interest from this spot) and for its distinctive decor and ambience. 

     

Taking Up Residence at The Fairlawn Hotel, Calcutta:

A word about the Fairlawn Hotel would be in order here. I am not entirely sure of the historical details, but the hotel was established by an Armenian woman called Violet Someone whose family settled in Calcutta before World War II. I believe it was her parents who had bought the hotel that subsequently fell under the management of their daughter.  During the war, Violet met a British soldier named Ted. They married, stayed on together in Calcutta and ran the hotel. It is a hulking, old Calcutta two-story bungalow with a sprawling general or public area on the ground floor that consists of a terrace garden or loggia, a porch where the Reception is housed, and a large living area that has been converted into the community dining hall.  In Violet’s time, breakfast and afternoon tea were served in this dining room. 

      The last time I stayed here, Violet was already on her last legs. She used to leave her spacious apartment on the first floor and come downstairs each morning to sit in the terrace garden where she would interact with all her guests and pass her time. Also, the last time I stayed here, in addition to meeting and chatting with her, I also met her daughter Jennifer who told me that for part of the year she lives in Cornwall in the UK and spends the rest of the time in Calcutta so that she can keep a watchful eye over her mother. In the time that has elapsed since I was last here (three years ago), Violet passed away, Jennifer (who inherited the hotel) sold it to the Elgin Group of Hotels on the condition that they retain it exactly as it was and do not change a thing.  

     As such, the vast collection of press clippings, photographs, lithographs, paintings, etc. that line the wall of the stairwell of the gorgeous wrought-iron and wood staircase that is thickly carpeted and every other wall inside, still remain.  They are a capsule, in a word, of the history of Calcutta from colonial times (there are pictures of Viceroy Lord Curzon as well as of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit to Calcutta in the 1960s) to contemporary times (there are pictures of the multiple visits of the cast and crew of the Merchant-Ivory filming unit who always stayed at the hotel including Shashi and Jennifer Kendall-Kapoor and of Mother Teresa for Violet was a big fan of the nun and generously supported her mission in Calcutta). 

     I have a favorite room in this hotel. It is on the upper floor and I love it because it has its own little balcony that comes equipped with a table and two chairs—the perfect place to prop up my laptop to write or to sip a tray of afternoon tea which I often order when I am here (alas, the Elgin Hotel management no longer offers complimentary Afternoon Tea in the dining hall downstairs). I was delighted, therefore, when I was allotted this room again and it was with excitement that I moved upstairs. Not much has changed inside the rooms—they are still fairly shabby and wear the air of a place that is long past its prime. But this does not bother me. As long as a place is clean, safe and centrally located, I have never had any qualms about temporary hotel accommodation anywhere in the world.  This probably explains why I have seen so much of the world while having very shallow pockets. And this place met my three criteria quite easily.

      I did not unpack as I had only two nights here, but I did stretch out on the bed and tried to get some shut eye—although I’d had several short naps in the train. After a while, since there was still light, I decided to go out and do some shopping as I really did not have too much time in this city on this visit.

    

A Visit to New Market:

     In Calcutta, the place to shop is New Market. It is one of the great Victorian covered markets that the British built in all their important colonial cities—so it is similar to Empress Market in Karachi and Crawford Market in Bombay. Inside, hundreds of dealers sell everything you can imagine from food to clothing to luggage. I had a few, very specific, items I wanted and it was thanks to my foodie friend Marianel who knows where to buy the best foods in any and every part of India, that I went in search of lemon tarts and rum balls from Nahoum, a Jewish bakery, barley sugar twists (also known as Calcutta Candy) and kasaundi (a mustard sauce) that is perfect on grilled fish or seafood. 

     As it turns out, New Market was a mere five minute walk from my hotel in what also used to be the Anglo-Indian heart of Calcutta. It was the part of the city that was inhabited by the Christian community in general—besides Anglo-Indians, Goans and Manglorean Christians also congregated in this area. Being that their inhabitants were always of low income, these areas were awfully decrepit because the homes they inhabited were barely better than chawl-type tenements. They were always rented at a time when tenants paid very low rents (which, they were also barely able to afford at the time). Because the kind of work they did (secretaries, teachers, railways personnel) offered barely any prospects of financial prosperity, the majority of them saw emigration as their only way towards better standards of living. Hence, come Independence, they emigrated en masse. These localities fell into disuse or were occupied by even poorer tenants who paid paltry rents to landlords who did not have the means to spend on maintenance (forget about improvement). 

     The end result is that these areas are horribly decrepit today. The buildings are so terribly shabby, the streets on which they stand are so filthy, there is garbage every which way you look and the crowds and congestion have to be seen to be believed. They say that when Americans travel anywhere in the world, they realize how fortunate they are that they live in America. I would add that when Bombayites travel anywhere in India, they realize how fortunate they are that they live in Bombay. This is certainty how I feel every time I come to Calcutta. I never cease to be appalled by the general squalor of the city and the total lack of any kind of civic pride, in this, one of the grandest colonial outposts. It was through a street (mercifully short) and choked with humanity (including dozens of beggars) that I made my way to the rust and cream facade of New Market.

     New Market (which is over a century old, really) is also called the S.S.Hogg Market and it was built in the last quarter of the 19th century. The easiest way to find what you seek is to ask one of the touts that accosts you as soon as you reach the market. I asked for Nahoums and, in no time at all, I was directed to a very large shop with glass windows (similar to the glass-fronted shops of the Covered Market in Oxford) whose shelves had been swiped clear of its wares! Inside mayhem prevailed as dozens of people tried to buy the plum cakes, rich fruit cakes, sponge cakes, Dundee Cakes, etc. that were behind a vast counter and the few smaller pastries (rum balls, chocolate rolls, etc) that were left. The shopping demand was augmented by the holiday season and I thought it interesting that the customers were mainly Hindus and Muslims buying for Christmas (as the Christians would have been buying ingredients from the various shops to make their own goodies). I could not get any lemon tarts as they were over, but I did get rum balls and chocolate rolls as well as plum cakes (which many think is the best in the city). 

     Getting out of the shop was a huge relief. More inquiries led me to a certain J. Johnson who sold the barley sugar twists and the mustard sauce I wanted.  The salesman also sold me a candy that he said is made by burning the sugar—he told me it is made only during Christmas and he strongly suggested I buy a packet.  Armed with my goodies, I thankfully made my way out of the market and was back in the busiest part of the city before the light went out for the day.

    

Afternoon Tea with Robyn:

     It was as soon as I returned to the hotel that I ran into my colleague, the New Zealander Dr. Robyn Andrews, who is an old friend of mine and one of the main organizers of the conference I had come to attend. We greeted each other warmly as she informed me that she and her Anglo-Indian husband, Keith Butler, originally from Calcutta and also a good friend of mine, were staying in the same hotel. She invited me to join her at Afternoon Tea in the dining hall and it was over a tray and a cake stand that we caught up. I honestly could not think of a more civilized ritual in a more gracious setting after the grueling ordeal I had survived in trying to do some typical Calcutta shopping during the Christmas preamble. 

Exploring Park Street at Christmastime:

     When I returned to my room, I resumed contact with Nafisa and Hosefa who told me that they would meet me at 6.00 pm on Park Street as we wished to see the lights for which this street in Calcutta is famed. Accordingly, I dressed warmly (for Calcutta is much colder than Bombay) and arrived at the spot in about ten minutes after another very interesting stroll past the Indian Museum that is beautifully illuminated in the evenings. 

     Once I reached Park Street, it was like a fairyland, truly. The lights would easily give Oxford Street or Regent Street in London a run for their money. They were extravagant and glorious. Every shop was lit up, every street lamp had lights strung from it. It was bright and colorful and simply awesome. Park Street was also the heart of Anglo-Indian Calcutta for all the posh restaurants and hotels have been based here since the time of the Raj. Anglo-Indian bands, individual musicians (such as jazz                                      pianist Louis Banks) and crooners (such as Pam Crane) who went on to have successful national careers, began their lives in the restaurants in this part of the city.  Among the better known ones were Firpo’s  and Mocambo (now closed) and Trinca’s and Kwality (that still stand). Just off Park Street, on Russel Street are Waldorf (a Chinese restaurant) and Floriana (where we will be dining tomorrow after the conference). The Anglo-Indian live bands have gone (just as they disappeared from the restaurants of Bombay and Karachi) but the lively ambience of the long-fled era still remains. 

This is also the home of Flury’s, the upscale British-style bakery, that has also produced mouth-watering  confectionary for generations—its Christmas cakes and pastries, chocolates and marzipan, are also legendary, and this establishment too was mobbed. I took my friends inside so that they could really see what the place is like and they were deeply impressed. We took any number of pictures of the road with its incessant traffic, which is probably augmented by the fact that the lights were turned on today for the first time and the tree-lighting ceremony was supposed to occur later further up the road.

     We did not wait for it as we thought of going on to dinner. And since we all wanted to taste traditional Bengali food, we made our way by Uber to Kewpie’s, a restaurant at which I had eaten before and where I remember the food being simply outstanding.

Dinner at Kewpie’s:

To say that that the prices at Kewpie’s were staggering would be an understatement. They were off the wall! We ordered vegetarian Thalis (which came with a bit of rice, two pooris, a stingy serving of dal, a tinier serving of dum aloo and a single slice of fried aubergine). This cost us Rs. 475! My friends told me that in Bombay, in even the most expensive eateries, you can get a vegetarian thali for Rs. 350 that includes all of the above plus at least three varieties of vegetable and far more generous quantities of everything. We were served in the tiniest earthenware (terracotta) bowls you can imagine. To subsidize our meal, we ordered hilsa (a Bengali river fish) in a mustard sauce—this cost us Rs. 400 and, I swear to you, it was a single piece of fish (what in the US, we would call a steak—not even a fillet). This was highway robbery. I was paying more than $5 for a single piece of fish. How exorbitant was that!? We also ordered a serving of Dab Chingri (which is Bengali-style prawns in an onion-mustard-coconut gravy). This too cost us Rs. 400. If you would think that we would get huge tiger prawns for this price, you’d be sadly mistaken. We got about four tiny prawns (I know—-I am using the word tiny a bit too often in this post!) in one of those minuscule terra-cotta vatis! Finally, Nafisa ordered Mutton and this too cost us Rs. 400. Only one person could eat of each Rs. 400 serving! The meal ended with mishti doi (sweet yoghurt) which was dessert and it was the best part of our meal. The end result was that with a non-alcoholic drink called Mango Panna (which cost Rs. 116 each), our bill came to about Rs. 1,000 per person. I was mortified as it was the most expensive meal we had eaten on our entire travels and it was I who had recommended the place to my friends—never for a second believing that we would become so much the poorer for it. Never again. I am never going to this restaurant again and I am never going to recommend it to anybody again. I understand that other places offering Bengali cuisine such as 6 Ballygunge Place and Kasturi are far more economical (and I shall certainly keep them in mind for next time).

     We finished our meal, got another Uber to drop me off to my hotel before my friends went off to their cousin’s place. We made plans to meet tomorrow (possibly for dinner in the evening as they shall be sightseeing during the day while I will be busy with my conference). 

     Once in my room, I was too exhausted to do anything more than brush my teeth and get ready for bed.

     Until tomorrow...