Kolkata (18/19APR)

The bastard son of the East India Company, pulled from the gutters by Mother Teresa, this is Kolkata. Kolkata's history as a city is fairly short, as it was initially a series of villages that the British occupied/bought and turned into the capital of the East India Company in 1690. Fort William was constructed and a large area was cleared around the fort for security. The area that was cleared remains today and is now a large park in the center of the city called the Maidan. The architecture through out the city still reflects the British rule, and at the northeast end of the Maidan the old city center/center for the East India Company looks like it could have been pulled right out of London. However, the piles of trash and hulks of old taxis under the trees along the road reminded you that you were still in India.
By the time we arrived in Kolkata, I was getting tired of India, so it was good that the city was my last stop with the tour. As I was preparing to leave the city, I realized I really hadn't taken many photos, which is probably a reflection of my wavering motivation, since the city did have character as well as characters on the streets that I could have captured. On our first day, we settled into the hotel and waited for the day to cool off in the late afternoon before venturing out for some site seeing. We arrived fairly early in the morning and decided to have some breakfast at the hotel, while we waited for our rooms. The hotel bar/restaurant had the look of a night club rather than a restaurant and despite the early hour, the staff's first offering was cold beer. We passed on the beer and ordered some of their breakfast options. The food was pretty bad and the service was horrendous. I really couldn't believe how bad it was. They had a staff of five attending to our group, the only customers in the place, and yet the food took forever, orders were wrong and even getting a bottle of water was a chore. Despite all of this we went back the following evening for a drink before bed but despite a decent crowd, they closed promptly and swiftly at eleven. My roommate wanted to buy a water, as we were paying for our drinks and getting urged toward the door. Granted we probably should have known better from our experience getting water in the morning, but he tried anyway. As not to blemish their record of poor customer service, they actually told him he would have to order it through room service!?! I would think this makes absolutely no since as it would be easier to give him the bottle right there rather than send someone up to the fifth floor to drop it off at our room, but they insisted. So, he requested the water at the front desk and five minutes later they brought the water to our room, but had no change, so they had to make a second trip with that as well. Amazing.
But I digress. Our first evening we walked through some of the slums and back roads where we saw a lot of campaign posters and signs for the local communist party. It is strange to see the hammer and sickle like Soviet Union's flag flying around a democratic country, but our guide told us that the communist party is actually more like the Labor Party in England and actually holds a majority of seats for some of the Indian provinces. We continued on to the convent where Mother Teresa lived, worked and is now buried. It is still an active convent and has a small museum about her life. She was born Albanian in present day Skopje, Macedonia, but left to become a nun at age 18 and never returned home. She began her work in India in 1929 and saw the famine and Hindu/Muslim violence of the 1940s when Bangladesh broke away from India. It was during this time that she had the calling to establish the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata. She initially wondered the streets, amongst the destitute she would later help, and had to beg for food and shelter, before she established her first mission with 13 members,. At the time of her death, it had expanded to 610 missions in 123 countries. The museum was simple, but her life story is amazing and made me feel guilty about my leisurely travels.
On our second day in Kolkata, a group of us went down to the BBD Bagh, which is named after three freedom fighters, Benoy, Badal, Dinesh who shot and killed the British Inspector of Prison's as he stood in a window of the Writer's Building in the square. The Writer's Building was the headquarters of the East Indian Company and is named for the clerks that kept track of all the Companies paperwork in the building. Across the street is the Post Office, which was the site of the original Fort William where the Black Hole of Calcutta was located. In 1756 the locals rebelled against the British and sacked the fort. They put the people they captured into a small guard room (the Black Hole) overnight and reportedly 123 of the 146 prisonners died of heat exhaustion, suffocation or trampling. There are few accounts of the event and the actual number of deaths, or if it occurred at all, have been questioned by historians.
After wondering around BBD Bagh, we cut through part of the Maiden and on to the Museum, which claimed to have the 'greatest collection of fossils in the world' however I think the collection of dinosaur bones at the Western Wyoming Community College may have it beat. We wondered the museum a bit and then went in search of lunch and decided to try McDonalds before we left India. The veggie burger was pretty miserable and everyone that ate there was sick later, so it may have given us food poisoning as well.

My last stop was the Victoria Memorial, which is an impressive building and museum with a collection of artwork depicting scenes in India as well as a section on the history of Kolkata from the East India Company's arrival, development of Indian Intellects/Philosophy, Press and Independance movement. However, getting inside was an ordeal. I initially entered the gardens from the east and found the entrance was not on that side of the building tried the south side and was directed to the north side. When I got to the entrance I was then directed back out of the grounds to the north gate to buy a ticket. I was sweating buckets in the 105 degree heat and humidity, and found an Indian style queue at the ticket booth where, despite around 50 people waiting for tickets, only one window was open. Around the window, two lines had formed the led into a mob at the window. I applaude the Indians that were actually waiting in line, and I joined them. Meanwhile others were walking right past the lines to enter the mob at the window that somehow thought they were above waiting. When the line approached the mob, I tapped a few of them on the shoulder and told them to get in line, but they conveniently couldn't understand English. To top it off, my ticket cost 15 times more than the ticket for Indians, but it didn't get me any perks, like a seperate line for westerners, which would have been nice. Did I mention I was getting tired of India at this point? Anyway, I wondered the Memorial until it closed, then hustled back to the hotel for quick goodbyes with the few people from the tour that were still in town and headed for the bus depot to catch my night bus to Darjeeling.