Keith Humphrey - Calcutta Revisited: Exploring Calcutta Through Backstreets and Byways

Chapter 1:

Chapter 2:

Chapter 3:

Chapter 4:

Chapter 5:

Chapter 6:

Chapter 7:

Chapter 8:

Chapter 9:

Chapter 10:

Chapter 11:

Chapter 12:

Chapter 13:

Chapter 14:

Chapter 15:

Chapter 16:

Chapter 17:

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Chapter 18:

Chapter 19:

Chapter 20:

Chapter 21:

Chapter 22:

Chapter 23:

Chapter 24:

Chapter 25:

Chapter 26:

Chapter 27:

Chapter 28:

Chapter 29:

Chapter 30:

Also by Keith Humphrey

Walking Calcutta

ISBN 978-1-907211-04-1

Published by Grosvenor House Publishing

2009

All royalties from the authors books on Calcutta are donated to the Calcutta based NGO Calcutta Rescue who undertake valuable work among the underprivileged of the City by providing a free comprehensive medical and health awareness service and educational and vocational programmes.

The red lights did not forbid.

Yet the City of Calcutta stopped suddenly

In its tempestuous rush;

Taxis and private cars, vans and tiger crested

Double decker buses;

Stopped precariously in their tracks.

Those who came running and screaming

From both sides of the road

Porters, vendors, shopkeepers and clients;

Even now they are like still life;

On the artists canvas.

Stunned they watch

Crossing from one side of the road;

To the other, with uncertain steps;

A child, completely naked.

It had rained in Chowringhee a short

while ago;

Now the sunlight has pierced the heart

Of the clouds

And is descending like an overlong shaft;

Calcutta shines with an eerie glow

I sit next to the bus window;

And look at the sky and you;

The child of a beggar mother;

Jesus of Calcutta..

From Jesus of Calcutta (Kolkatar Jishu)

By Narendranath Chakraborty

All photographic images included in this book and cover are copyright of the author

To the people of Calcutta

the unsung eighth wonder of the world

for their many kindnesses to me

A ll that is in this book derives from my own first hand observations in Calcutta. As with my earlier book on the City, the methodology employed involved solitary extended stays in simple lodgings in one or other of the more densely populated quarters of the City and daily forays through the backstreets and byways of each of the areas being covered. In the tumultuous and pullulating metropolis which is Calcutta, this can be draining both physically and motivationally. I am therefore greatly indebted to all those who in their different ways helped keep my spirits raised sufficiently to enable me to complete my task. There were the various staff at my hotel whose unrelenting inquisitiveness about my personal circumstances provided an endless source of amusement. The local pavement dwellers, hawkers and other street people remembered from previous visits, who never failed in having a friendly smile for me whenever I encountered them. Then there were the countless and nameless passers by who, the minute my notebook appeared, would stop and engage me in conversation and, having satisfied their curiosity, invariably wished me well.

I am also indebted once again to Chris Smy for his technical and design skills in reproducing my photographic images both within the book and those appearing on the covers.

My biggest debt however, is to my dear Bengali friend and Calcutta resident, Udita Chatterjee for her unfailing assistance in checking the many and various issues I raised with her and for being generous enough to spend her free time in my company on my rare rest days.

I t is now five years since publication of Walking Calcutta my original book for travellers to the City which until then, had been largely ignored by travel writers from the West. Ordinarily this would be the time for a review and update followed by publication of a revised edition.

That accepted, there is also a need to acknowledge and respond to the valuable feedback I have received since publication of Walking Calcutta. This feedback, from travellers kind and brave enough to have put their trust in me to guide them through the previously less explored quarters of the City had persuaded me that what was called for was something more than a simple revision of what had gone before.

Perhaps the overriding consideration is that for so many travellers, the vast majority in fact, their stay in Calcutta is of only short duration; far too limited to allow for undertaking the lengthy walking tours set out in my earlier book. The plea has been for shorter, less arduous and time consuming forays into more concentrated areas of interest. This book is my response.

I have endeavoured wherever possible, to explore Calcutta via its backstreets and byways, where most of daily life is lived. Those who wish to follow my routes need to be aware of just how unusual will be their presence in most of these localities. They can expect to be met with much good natured curiosity from locals and it is my hope that they will find this as rewarding to them as it always has been to me.

Readers of my previous book will identify some repetition; something largely unavoidable in works involving so much factual observation. I have tried wherever possible to limit such repetition without discarding that which will be of enduring interest to the inquisitive traveller or advice useful to them. I hope that I have gone some way to achieving this.

As was my intention in writing Walking Calcutta, if this book can go some way in encouraging the traveller to see and experience Calcutta in a way they would not otherwise have been able to, then it will have achieved its purpose.

Calcutta has always been a very special place for me, indeed I believe there to be nowhere else on earth quite like it. The City and its people hold a singular place in my affections, unabated in more than forty years. This has drawn me back repeatedly over the years and I am sure it will continue to do so until the day I die.

In 2001, Calcutta officially renamed itself Kolkata which is more in line with the Bengali pronunciation. In this book I have stuck with Calcutta; not in any attitude of wilful defiance but simply because it seems more appropriate given the many historical references I have included.

Similarly, I have liberally employed the old names of many of the Citys thoroughfares since officially renamed. I have taken this freedom wherever, in my experience, the original name is still in wider use locally than the new. The same applies with my spellings of thoroughfares and features where alternative and sometimes multiple, versions are in use; I have used the spellings I believe most widely employed. My objective has been to try to avoid confusion for those less familiar with the City. I hope the more knowledgeable will understand and allow me this indulgence.