Kolkata Diary - একটুকু ছোঁয়া লাগে একটুকু কথা শুনি

A visit to home city is incomplete if I don’t mention it here. This was one of those many visits which don’t need any preparations and planning. I was going to my home and visiting home doesn’t need any sort of invitation.

‘’Boro din’’ aka Christmas in Kolkata is a big festival. We were out one evening, a day before Christmas to get into the festive spirit this city has to offer. We went to Park Street, where all the buzz was centered. And what maddening rush, we came across there.The street was well regulated by traffic police.

It was sea of people and more people. We were literally walking like Penguins in waddle. And if someone gets lost there, a Hindi film- script writer can write a story revolving the separation caused by this maddening rush. Something like ….......

’’Park- Street ke Bheed mein bichde do bhai or bahan’’- (meaning is lost in translation).

Anyhow that is a different story, and our story is real. We were slowly absorbing the festivity. So many street hawkers selling various props, Christmas hats, face –masks, hair bands, and what not. Nobody can believe that almost all of them are non-Christians and they do celebrate Christmas like even Christians won’t celebrate in Europe. Total contrast as compared to western way of celebrating Christmas where people are mostly confided in their homes spending time with friends and family. And that’s the beauty of India lies- unity in diversity.

While, we were slowly moving and walking towards the other end of Park Street, dear daughter stopped at  iconic Oxford book store and purchased couple of story books from there.

We then went to Flurys to buy Christmas cake. The iconic Flurys was all decked up. There were many stalls selling different varieties of Christmas cakes.

Fruit cake, Red Currant and cranberries cake, date and walnut cake, plum cake etc. We picked date and walnut cake and while we were in queue to pay the bills, we happened to click few pics.

We even saw decorations throughout the city street while we were going to catch our flight back to KL.

 One more evening we went to Princep Ghaat, and were mesmerised by the sunset at Ganges.

The evening sky with all its colourful vigour, the magnificent Hooghly Bridge and river boats were painting a perfect sunset picture for us - misty and all dreamy.

Although we didn’t venture out for boat riding, but saw many couples going for boat rides. This time we noticed, boats were provided with life-jackets for passengers and a solar panel is installed on each boat hut to supply for the light in boat and we thought, whoever has planned this or came up with this idea, needs applause for that.

We had ice-cream cones from the street vendors selling ice-creams. While coming back to home, we stopped at 'Arsenal' to have our favourite biryani. This is something we always like to do – having biryani at 'Arsenals' is our must to-do-thing while visiting Kolkata... 

We had to queue up to get inside, but that’s not a problem at all for us. Biryani as usual was flavorful, fluffy and light and with nice aroma. We came back home tired with loads of memories for that day. 

Kolkata always surprises us with something new, although we were home-visiting but ended up being travellers there, exploring some new facets of life there.

This is it, we came back to KL, with all those splendid memories to cherish.

কথা ছিলো অনেক বলার , কিন্তু আজকে এই খানে  শেষ করলাম। ..............

We are also paying our sincere tribute To Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose on his 120 th birth anniversary ..May his legacy inspire many more future generations.

See you all soon with a new recipe post. You all take care. Have a great week ahead.