Kolkata

Nov 16th -ish or somewhere thereabouts..
So this post is a bit old and delinquent. On the same trip to Jamshedpur and Bhubaneswar, I also stopped in Kolkata. Nihal and I went to a new planned area called Salt Lake City which is kind of an IT hub and a new, kind of high-end area. This area, too, was kind of divided up into 'neighborhood units' oriented kind of radially around a central area. The central area had a big mall that seemed pretty popular.
There was also a big park in the center, too, but unfortunately you had to pay to enter.

At this point it was already getting late, so I opted to go see Victoria Memorial. I had hoped to see more of the actual old city, but just didn't end up having enough time. The memorial is this big, white building which is now a museum; the building is inside a big park in the city. What was most interesting to me was how people were using this park.

There was a main walkway terminating at the memorial and on either side were park benches. Each bench was occupied by one, or two at most, couples. Even in the big cities here, I haven't seen much public display of affection, and especially not in more-conservative Ahmedabad. However, at this park there were even a few couples making out, in public! Oh, the brazenness..hahahah. But seriously, PDAs are so rare here that I still do a double take if I see a couple holding hands - and most of the time these couples are married. Also considering the fact that it seems the majority of young indians live with their parents until they marry, and then even after sometimes, they don't have their own place for ..romantic meetings. So the fact that this park has become the place for that is really interesting.

One of the best parts of Kolkata was that I stayed with some friends I had known from CEPT, Saikat and Vibha. Apparently Saikat had liked Vibha right away in school, but she always thought he was just a friend, so they remained good friends during their masters until he finally proposed. They are such a cute couple! Apparently though they are of different castes, Vibha is a higher caste Brahmin, and it took some convincing of her parents to allow the marriage. Now they live with Saikat's parents in Kolkata which has taken some getting used to for Vibha. She comes from central india and so doesn't speak Bengali. She is also veg only, while Saikat and his family, as many Bengalis are, eat non-veg.

But anyway it was great seeing them again after so many years. They showed me the video of their wedding. And I had some nice home-cooked shrimp!