Oh, Calcutta

Landed at 9:50. Claiming our baggage (which always has the knack of coming in last), washroom break to repair the damages to our faces and calling up all and sundry who were interested in our safe arrival. By the time this round was done, it was 11. We were ravenous and Rhea had spent the 2 hour flight time talking about the wonderful cafeteria at the airport. Alas, by 11 the "wonderful cafeteria" was closed!!!! Our last meal was at noon in Hyderabad.


The road being unsafe, the relatives with whom we were to stay, suggested that we spend the night at the airport. They promised to pick us up at 8 the next morning. No sign of food. With heads on a bench and feet on an airport trolly, we made our beds at the airport.

My first thoughts on reaching Cal were predominated by disappointment. The Cal of my dreams (blame it on me for not googling it beforehand) turned out to be a very different Cal from the original one I got a glimpse of at the airport. I had a Bengali teacher called Nalini at school and it was her with her pastel Bengal cottons and her husband with his kurta pyjamas who had created that intellectual image of Calcutta painted in lighter shades of pale.

I saw exactly two men in Kurta Pyjamas and one woman in a cool Calcutta cotton sari. All the other men looked like men everywhere else in India - pants, T Shirts - some garish, some cool. And the women, they were the biggest disappointment. Canary yellows with shocking pink. With electric blue and purple, beads and sequins and embroidery and every kind of green thrown in. All on the same garment. Where were the crisp cottons with contrasting borders? Why did everyone look harassed instead of cool and crisp. Another illusion shattered.

But I amused myself by looking at the loos in the airport. They had the picture of an old fashioned painting of a Queen outside the women's loo to indicate that it was the womens'. For a minute I thought it was Noor Jehan. It turned out to be the Queen of Cards. Of course, there was the King of Cards outside the mens'. Why? I mean, why? Why would anyone want to do that? Didn't find the Jack or the Joker anywhere... I looked. I had to spend the night there. How else could I amuse myself!!!!?

I wonder if all of Cal is going to be the same. I wonder if rainbow is the "in" color in Cal for the summer. I wonder if I am going to get any shopping done. I wonder if all the food here is going to be as spicy as the veggie chops that Rhea foraged for us from one of the dhabas near the airport. Aaarghh!!!!