Seat of Our Pants » kolkata-calcutta

Color Color Everywhere – Holi Festival 2010

Jaime — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 08:40:34 +0000

Color, color everywhere.

The Holi Festival took place today and, as promised, it was a rambunctious display of drumming, dancing and color powder smearing. We’re taking the train north today from Kolkata, so we’re missing most of it, but what we did see (and be apart of) was a whole bunch of fun.

What we didn’t expect was the city’s closure, though. The shops have closed up, the restaurants are locked and the city is jointly ushering in spring. I guess when you’ve got this going on in front of your business – it’s safest to keep the door locked.

Check out the photo gallery & video of the colorful festival below…

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Not a Job for the Faint of Heart

Jaime — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 13:33:34 +0000

When you have masses of people jammed together in a mega city (Kolkata is home to 15 million people), many of whom are looking for work, there is always someone who will do something for compensation.

Take Nils’, our travel buddy at the moment, story about buying a card for his cell phone. The price had been agreed on and the paperwork had begun, but apparently he needed a copy of his passport. Before he knew what was happening, the owner of the shop was yelling at a boy nearby who grabbed his passport and went dashing down the street to get a copy. The cost of such service? 10 rupees (about 20 US cents)

The guys pictured are another example. Using no safety equipment (that I can see, anyway), these men have scaled up hundreds of feet to hang bamboo. We have no way of knowing what pay these risk-takers make, but it’s a safe bet that it’s far below what you would think. Far, far below.

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Indian Chai and the Earth

Jaime — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 13:27:58 +0000

“I’ll have a venti, one splenda, non-fat, no foam chai latte, please.”

Yes, this used to be something I said out load – to people, no less. Starbucks may have been my introduction to chai, but India and Nepal have been my education in it. Here whole milk is combined with tea and spices. A few heaping scoops of sugar are added to the mix and the whole thing is boiled for five minutes. The result is a creamy, sugary wonderful afternoon pick-me-up.

Kolkata offers an especially fun element to drinking chai: the ceramic to-go cup. No joke, this is how street-vendor chai is served in this city. The servings are small, which suits me just fine since it’s so bloody sweet that you don’t want too much of it. Once you’re finished, you either toss it into a bucket that sits by the stall or, well, anywhere else on the street. Piles of these little terracotta cups are all over this city. Some are reused while others get smashed and ground back into the earth.

Kolkata Chai

While trash dumps all over the world are filling with paper Starbucks cups, Kolkata has maintained a chai drinking tradition that is not only fun but makes a whole bunch of environmental sense – and I’m OK with that.

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The Color Festival

Jaime — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 13:21:02 +0000

Rumor has it that we’ve arrived in Kolkata just in time for the Holi festival. It hasn’t happened yet and we’ve been told it’s taking place on three different days from three different people. Our hopes are set for tomorrow, since we’re departing in the afternoon and really want to be apart of something as cool as this Festival.

Celebrated by the Hindi people, the Holi festival is meant to usher in spring. We’ve been referring to it as the color festival because the basics of the celebration are color – brightly colored water or powder are thrown on anyone within range.

The first clue that the festival will in fact take place came on our walk today. Street vendors were selling powder and specially made powder guns in preparation. If this thing does go down, we’ll be there, so expect a full report – once we’ve cleaned up a bit.

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Impressions of Kolkata

Martin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:50:12 +0000

Kolkata is perhaps better known under its old name – Calcutta: a name that evokes images of poverty, beggars, Mother Theresa and vast overpopulated slums. After a couple of days here, I have to say that our experiences of the city are far different.

In contrast to other Indian cities, we’ve found Kolkata to be decidedly laid-back. The city has more than a fair share of parkland, where goats graze among old British imperial monuments. People are less stressed-out as well – it is perfectly possible to stroll around town without being outright assaulted by people wanting to sell you something.

Now, this above should be taken with a grain of salt. This is still India, and Kolkata is the world’s 8th largest city. Still, our first impressions are very promising.

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Kolkata’s Indian Museum

Martin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:46:26 +0000

The Indian Museum in Kolkata is a glorious throwback to what museums used to be like. It has everything from intact whale skeletons to Egyptian mummies and Naga crossbows. The taxidermied animal section is especially freaky-looking, with a moth-eaten Polar Bear that has turned brown with age, a Tiger so amateurishly stuffed that he looks absolutely terrified and endless rows of fish and snakes. Oh, and human fetuses pickled in formaldehyde.

Not exactly whiter than snow anymore

In the end, we found the art section to be the most interesting: a collection of quaint, subtle watercolors, painted by unknown (to us) masters. It’s a pity the lighting was so dismal – both for the sake of the paintings, who deserve better; and also for you readers, because all the pictures we took were too low in quality to post. Instead, we present you with this familiar image of Jaime and husband (?).

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