Sunday: Heading homeward, plus a savage crop

Name and shame - Howrah Station rogues gallery

I sleep fitfully and wake with the alarm to hurry out for a tuk-tuk to the station. Mine is a second class "AC chair car" ticket. It looks a bit down-at-heel. but is comfortable enough. It's also a bargain. For less than a fiver, I travel 507 kms. (distance always shown on Indian rail tickets), with bottled water, newspaper, breakfast and lunch included. Serving 1200 warmish IR meals to passengers from the confines of a railway carriage kitchen is an impresive organisational feat. The landscape slips by: more long viaducts over estuaries, more flat and fertile fields, no oxen. This must be the mechanised grain basket of the Bay of Bengal. The gent in the next seat does not speak; he's reading a Bengali book, and I suspect that he doesn't speak English. However, about half an hour before we hit Howrah, he suddenly opens up, says he is a manager with State Bank of India, and engages me in an earnest discussion on Keynsian economics, the Imperial antecedents of Sino-Indian conflict, the self-deception of America, industrialisation in the developing world, and how fortunate we are in Britain to have so much uncrowded space.

My horoscope (Taurus) in the Calcutta Sunday Telegraph magazine says of the week ahead, "It will be a great opportunity to catch up with paperwork and other tedious chores." I'm not sure it will be so great. The front page is given over to colour adverts for up -market apartments in Calcutta's new satellite towns. So the rich will lock themselves in gated developments (with pool, fitness clinic, play facilities and nearby shopping mall) while the rest go rot. Haven't we seen that somewhere before?

Boarding the ferry - space for one more? (yes)

I arrive back in Calcutta with time to kill, so seek out the ferry pontoons opposite Howrah Station and take a boat trip to the furthest ferry point upriver. I'd assumed that the Ganges/Hooghly always flowed "downhill", but of course it's tidal here, and the tide is coming in fast, so it's a speedy trip under the bridgeand beyond. The bathing and (gas-powered) burning ghats are busy; as we pass by, a huddle of mourners gently place someone's ashen remains in the river to float off to eternity (with a brief detour upstream.) At my disembarcation point I stop to watch people bathing and scrubbing laundry on the steps, though the colour of the water, like weak mock turtle soup,  may explain why poorer Calcuttans' shirts are rarely Persil white. 

Washing in the Hooghly

From the ghat, I venture up a suburban street, dragging my little trolley case behind me, but I am hounded by taxi drivers who want to know where I want to go. They have no English, and call in an interpreter, but even he cannot seem to comprehend that I just want to take a walk for its own sake. Walking is what you do to get somewhere, not for pleasure or curiosity. I insist, and continue, photographing people asleep and snoring on a temple floor, in a handcart and at home under a makeshift shelter. It is Sunday afternoon, after all. 

Temple sleepers, Sunday afternoon

But some shops are open for business, and I decide to get my hair cut. The "holiday souvenir haircut" is a tradition of my travels (like buying local toothpaste), a must-have for the return trip. The barber is a suave-looking fellow, bearing some resemblance to Sweeney Todd in the film. He orders me rather abruptly to sit and wait while he finishes shaving himself in front of the mirror. This is a time-consuming process involving twice lathering his face then scraping it off with a steel cutthroat razor. I decide to stick to a simple cut at Rs. 30  (35p.) and not go for the shave (Rs. 20) or other extras on offer like face/head/arm massage, creamed face or scented hair oil. As I have found to my cost before  (see 2 November 2011), engage a barber who has no English at your peril. I hold out some of my longer locks and make scissor actions with my fingers to suggest what length he should cut off, but become more and more anxious as the operation proceeds and the heap of white hair on the floor grows deeper. At one point I gesticulate and call out "No more!", but he shows no mercy, says "No, no!" and knocks my head sideways (his manner is somewhat rough and unsympathetic) to continue the trim. When finished (I give him a big thumbs up to dissuade him from further depredations), he tries to persuade me to let him trim the beard, oil the hair and massage my face with some yellow ointment. Enough. Some 24 hours later, I arrive home in Wymondham. Almost Sara's first words are, "Ooh, I like the haircut!"

I return home via Kuwait and Gatwick. To paraphrase Amitav Ghosh, places don't merely exist, they have to be invented in your imagination. Indians often ask "Do you like my India?" Thus what you've been reading, if you have been, is "my" India. I hope you like it too.

Saturday - The Sun Temple, Konark

Sanctuary (on stone wheels) to left. Building on right was a platform for dance, once roofed.

My final day before starting the trek home. Breakfast late, write yesterday's blog post, check out the little shops down the road and wander on the beach. The hotel manager gives me a complimentary ticket for the first night of the annual Konark Dance Festival, so I book an auto rickshaw for 1.30 to get me there with plenty of time to see the celebrated Sun Temple. It's surprising how long it takes to cover 35 kms., even in a shiny new yellow tuk-tuk, but the road is smooth, following the coastline through a wildlife park ("Deers may cross") and on bridges over a series of pristine estuaries. It reminds me of a well-loved road in Tanzania, lush with tall palms, banana groves and villages with palm thatched mud brick homes.

The Sun Temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, voted one of the Seven Wonders of India in a TV poll (!). It's Saturday, and the  heritage lovers are out in force, as busy as a stately home on an Antiques Roadshow day. Inevitably I get roped into several family photos but have stopped reciprocating - my computer has a strict limit on the number of images it can store of me with mama, mama-in-law, baba, babu, uncleji, auntiji and precocious little brats-ji. But I guess I look a bit of a buffoon as I wear my check shorts to feel the breeze on my knobbly knees in the tuk-tuk.

Note giraffe, far right. They must have traded with Africa.

The temple all but defies description. It was conceived by the Eastern Ganga King in about 1250 as a thank offering to Suriya the Sun God who cured him of leprosy. Sadly, it was sacked by Muslims in the 1550s, then buried under mounds of blown sand awaiting rediscovery in 1902. But what remains is spectacular - a 200 ft. central shrine in the form of a giant carriage drawn by stone horses (now lost). The 24 huge stone wheels and axles remain, each serving as a sophisticated sundial at different times of the day and year.  The real genius of the place is in its carvings. Every square inch is covered with delicate carvings ranging in size from miniature to massive. These depict hunting scenes, animals - literally thousands of elephants process round the base, scenes of domestic life, gods and mythological beasts. But mainly human forms - musicians, dancers, lovers - which are at the same time both delicate and decidedly indelicate. The celebrated scenes of eye-popping erotica are surely the largest collection anywhere of medieval stone porn, no holes barred. Look at the next post - if you dare! Rabindranath Tagore, the great Bengali writer, said something like "when words fail, the poetry of stone takes over". One theory is that the monument respresents a state of ultimate bliss - witness the rapture the faces of the less worn figures!

For such an ace place, it's disappointing that no guidebook is available (should I offer my services?), though before entering I am hassled by "government approved" guides offering to show me round, which I resist. Despite the crush of visitors, the site is immaculately kept (no litter) and is devoid of the usual plethora of notices, though I rather like "Do not ascend the embankment" on a grassy slope. Shades of "No picnicking on the greensward" at Frinton-on Sea.

From the temple I amble, Calcutta-style, towards the open-air arena erected for the Konark Dance Festival. I stop at a dhaba en route for a meal of onion bahjies, delicious round doughy things and a couple of sauces, all prepared in a giant wok over a blazing wood fire. Cost र40 (45p). I'm often surprised how rarely local people try to overcharge when they could so easily get away with it. That is the privilege of taxi drivers. The trees along the road to the festival are hung with fairy lights and hundreds of ornate Chinese lanterns, and expectancy is in the air. I show my (free) ticket and go in the V I P entrance but nobody cares, though I later notice that there is also a "V V I P Entrance". I don my long trousers, but feel distictly underdressed in the presence of so many immaculately turned-out Indian dance-lovers.

I have never before seen classical Indian dance, and do not fully understand the gestures and postures. The costumes are very like the 13th. century figures at the temple - the ones who haven't got there kit off, that is - and the movements are graceful and highly stylised, danced to complex twangy music performed live on stage. There are two groups of professional dancers and - nice touch, this - an artist has set up an easel at the side of the stage and works on a painting during the performance. For me, the crowning magnificence is the great floodlit temple in the background, its layers enhanced by light and shadow so it looks like a giant dalek radiating light against the black sky. There are, I estimate, about 2000 people present - not bad for a "high art" show in a one horse town beside the seaside.

I omitted to bring any warm clothing with me and it is decidedly cold on the way back in the rickshaw. I thread my arms through the legs of my check shorts and wear my (dry) bathing shorts on my head so I look like a Howrah Station porter.

Parental advisory: Medieval Porn

One of many variations on this theme

The Joy of Sex set in stone

Roll over, Dr Alex Comfort! What a good job that Calcutta university vice-chancellor (see Friday) didn't live in the 13th century! He would have been horrified by such excesses of nongrami "frozen in luxuriant detail for posterity". It makes a stark contrast to the very buttoned-up attitudes in modern Indian society towards such matters. 

Konark's sculptors favoured a hands-on approach

I wonder what today's family visitors to Konark make of it? Or are they using it as a sort of visual aid for their kids, sanitized by an 800 year time gap? For once, I'm too discreet to ask.

Strong arms & a good sense of balance required

A trifle exaggerated, one assumes

One commentator describes Konark as "The ultimate wet dream of the architectural fraternity."

Friday: With Jagannath in Puri

I arrive in Puri and auto to Gandhara Hotel just as a posse of aged English tour-groupies (knobbly white legs in shorts) leave. My disreputable reputation must go before me. The room will not be ready until later, so I have breakfast and sit in the sun by the pool. Yes, there's a pool here. It looks inviting, but nobody uses it. Perhaps they are deterred by the large notice advising that it has a "urine detector". 

I catch up on the news from today's Times of India and yesterday's Calcutta Telegraph (an intelligent and very well-written paper). A feature reveals that a university vice-chancellor has had a city park closed for all but two hours a day as he is "disturbed" by students "sitting closely" on the grass, which he finds objectionable. The new opening hours are 4 - 6 pm; an ideal time for nongrami (as it's called), you might think. It gets dark here at 5.

Look this way and BIG smile, please

When I finally get into Room 34 on the top floor, it is bright and airy with a sea view (just) and a softish bed on which the snooze and recover from the overnight train trip. Which is what I'm doing when Sara 'phones to discuss my now imminent return home. I am to take a daytime train to Calcutta early on Sunday, then catch a flight back to London via Abu Dhabi. I should be under the chill grey skies of home (but Sara's warm embrace) by Monday lunchtime. Puri is hot and steamy, an Indian seaside resort cum pilgrimage centre, or Lourdes-on-Sea. The beach is just 100 yds or so from the hotel, so I take a wander there and later return with my swimming gear. I've lugged it round Northen India for this very purpose. As the Rough Guide warns, this end of the beach, near the fishing village, is not the cleanest. It needs no "urine detector" to detect that it is not a Blue Flag beach, however I risk a quick dip underwater, keeping my mouth firmly shut. The beach shelves steeply, and waves build up powerfully with a strong undertow which claims victims every year. In fact, in a rare Indian concession to H & S, there are lifeguards posted along the beach wearing little conical white hats as ID. Apparently they will hold the hands of weak swimmers (e.g. me) for a small fee, but I don't avail myself of this service. Nor do I take a camel ride, though it looks fun. The camels are docile and draped with marigolds like soft-faced (belching) Hindu deities. Speaking of which, for the first time I see a girl feed fruit to a black street cow, then touch her forehead to it as a mark of respect.

Temple from side street, setting sun

Later into town by cycle rickshaw, arriving as the sun sets behind the mighty 1000-year old Jagannath Temple (current structure c. 1174). Jagannath, Lord of the Universe, is one of the Hindu pantheon I have not encountered before. He has a round black face and is protected by lions, and this place heaves with his devotees - indeed, it is the fourth holiest pilgrimage site in India. Unusually, non-Hindus are not allowed in the great temple complex. A vast square in front of the temple is teeming with thousands upon thousands of people milling around, buying Jagannath-tat from the souvenir stalls or saluting the temple in prayer. And that's just those outside. It is easy to imagine how, in times of tension, a crowd like this could become a murderous mob. I'm not here for the annual Jagannath festival, when a huge image is paraded unstoppably round the town, from which is derived our English word "juggernaut". This evening there are mini-processions, heralded with lights and drums. 

Ready for the chop

I wander round the outer temple walls. There's an image or small shrine every few yards, but otherwise it's business as usual, with hot and cold food stalls along the streets, little shops under the arcades, and occasional glimpses into cavern-like courtyards behind. But for the electric lights and vehicles, it could be a reconstruction of a street scene from medieval London.

After all my high living in Calcutta, I eat basic tonight - fresh-caught kingfish and chips in an open-sided cafe on the beach.

Thursday: A Melancholic Morning, off (and on) the rails

I take another hand rickashaw to the Sudder Street internet cafe (local one is closed) then amble back to pack my bags for the conveniently late checkout time of midday. Then on foot to Park Street Cemetery. Here I adopt the poise of a minor Romatic poet and spend the best part of two hours looking melancholic among the monumental excesses of deceased Georgian gentry. Admission if free, but with two heavy ledgers to sign, and the site is maintained with a fitting balance between seemliness and decay. Two builders are up a bamboo ladder patching up some fallen masonry (all monuments are rendered brick). They ask for food, so I give them my squashy bananas. This is funerary architecture (1767-c.1840) on a grand scale. Squeezed closely together in a woodland setting are tall obelisks, bulky pyramids, miniature Greek porticos, stone catafalques and urns a-plenty. But not much statuary (weeping angels not big in Georgian Calcutta) or Christian symbolism. Many of the entombed died quite young, and inscriptions witness to the prevalence of infant deaths and death in childbirth. One of the strangest tombs in that of Maj. Gen. Charles Stuart, known as "Hindoo Stuart", whose tomb has all the elements of a Hindu temple in miniature. Stuart converted to Hinduism, adopted native dress, and attempted to persuade European ladies to wear saris arguing (amongst others) that without steel corsets they would be less likely to be struck lightning.

Tombstone Alley

From near the cemetery I catch a tram, unsure where it will take me. Trams are not usually designed for right-angled bends, but Calcutta trams are an exception. As we approach a junction at which we are to turn sharp left, the conductor hops down with a long iron pole which he wedges between the tracks to change the points. We advance slowly and with a bit of a wobble, then come to a halt. The tramcar has refused to turn and jumped the rails. Consternation. The driver steps down to take a look; passengers crane their necks out of the windows and passers-by point down to the wheels. Back in his cab, the driver reverses cautiously - reversing anywhere on these log-jammed streets takes negotiation and good will. We try again, and fail again. This procedure continues for five minutes or more as we see-saw up and down until eventually the wheels get traction on the curving rail and we are off at last. It's Lenin Sarani - you'd have thought that might have facilitated a leftish turn. The road leads to the Esplanade, and the terminus for this route.

The Esplanade may conjure up images of fashionable Edwardian ladies promenading with their parasols, and you'd be right. This area was developed in the late 1800s as a society shopping and social point for Europeans and the native elite. The governor's mansion is at one end, there's a park at its heart dominated by the Ochterlony Monument, a massive Nelson's column lookalike, and grand former department stores (including Calcutta's only art nouveau) line the perimeter. But the days of such social exclusiveness have long passed, and it takes some imagination to visualise it as originally conceived. The sheer press of numbers on the streets (not to mention the depot for honking long-distance buses) puts paid to any notion of gentility. I am hailed on the street by someone implausibly called Ronnie who speaks with an Irish accent (educated by missionaries). He sees me wilting and says, "India's big problem today - too much people!" A very perceptive chap, Ronnie.

I get a Calcutta take on European-style shopping at a self-service store like a big version of QD. Their own-label clothing might raise eyebrows amongst younger clientele in the UK. It's called Spunk. Purchasing procedure: on entry, show security girl contents of my bags; she fixes stickers on my opened water and drinks bottles. Fill basket/trolley in familiar way. On departure: queue at checkout; bag-wallah places items purchased in my own bag; tag-wallah fixes plastic tag to seal bag; checkout girl presents receipt, which I pay; she stamps receipt big red stamp; present stamped receipt to security-wallah on door, who punches a hole in it with a hole punch. These procedures, and countless other similar ones, help keep 20 million Calcuttans employed.

Metro back to Park Street where I sip a reviving beer and later eat delicious noodles before collecting my luggage and taxi-ing to Howrah Station. The Puri Express leaves from platform 22 in the "new end" of the station and I have a long wait for my 22.35 departure. It is, of course, very busy (as Ronnie would notice), but brightly lit and orderly with a whole range of amenities such that you could almost live here. As some people do: I step over a few to get to a vacant seat. No sign of the infamous railway children. One facility we do not have on stations at home is a "Public Grievance Redressal Booth." What a good idea - so much better than a remote Ombudsman. Though I suspect that the advice might be to go and find a man on the street with an old Remington and put it in writing.

Footnote - so what's Calcutta really like?

We've talked for years of visiting this amazing city where Sara's grandfather was born. It's been worth the wait, though of course I've barely scratched the surface. It's no longer a beautiful city in the normally understood sense, but there is beauty to be found, as I hope the photos show. Not least, the people are a star attraction for their cheerfulness, friendliness and tolerance (though in the main they just ignore me.) I like the pace here - unlike the rush and push of Delhi, Calcuttans prefer to amble along and take their time. Despite the huge disparities of wealth and poverty, Calcutta has a low crime rate, less than other big Indian cities and very much less than, say London or other European capitals. It's a safe place for tourists.

Poverty is visible, but rarely as shocking as I imagined. Mother Teresa has much to answer for. She unintentionally blackened the city's name, but did little for it in return. Her operations here were very small in scale, offering a little dignity to a small number of destitute people, but almost no medical care, though she certainly had the funds. Today, I hardly saw a single beggar, apart from in Sudder Street (where the backpackers go). There seem to be three main categories of beggars - old men or women fallen on hard times, victims of disfigurement through accident or sickness (polio, leprosy), and young women clutching babies asking for food. These last, sadly for them, are part of begging rackets controlled by racketeers who take all the money. No local ever gives to them as they know it's a scam. But it's just not true that, as a westerner, you'll constantly be asked for money or confronted by human misery and distress.

City centre locations such as Park Street, have opulent shops and restaurants which look as though they belong in Kensington or Chelsea. At night you may find (a few) people bedding down outside. In quieter backstreets, whole families sometimes live, work and play on the pavement. The mega-rich and the near destitute live side by side in a way that would be unimaginable in Europe. That just how it is, and probably always has been. Incidentally, Calcutta's streets are tolerably well swept. Religious observances (e.g. temples and street-side shrines) are less in evidence than elsewhere. And there are no cows wandering at will. But oh, so many dogs!

Calcutta on Foot - a short account of a long walk

Writers Building & Scottish church across BBD Bagh

Today I finally "break in" the legs with a long, long tramp around old Calcutta. My guide is Walking Calcutta: on foot through the City's backstreets and byways by Keith Humphrey from Ipswich. I follow his first walk, which is so precisely described that I only once get lost, and resort to my pocket compass (which he recommends as a backstop). By hand-rickshaw and metro to the starting point near BBD Bagh, formerly Dalhousie Square, with its scenic tank/pond/lake. Lots of Calcutta streets are formerly something or other (including the inevitable Lenin Sarani, formerly Dharmatala Street), though frequently both names are still used. This is confusing, especially when name boards with addresses can refer to locations round the corner, and numbering is not sequential. (I remember that from Dar es Salaam days - must have been a colonial thing to confuse the natives.)

The route takes me round the heart of the one-time European quarter, and very splendid it is/was - the imperial capital (until transferred to Delhi in 1911) second only to  London in importance and known as a "city of palaces". Some remain "restored to their former glory" (as they say), while others are crumbling relics. There seems to be no consistent restoration plan, so within the same street glorious and gleaming mansions rub shoulders with total wrecks. Thinks - time someone did a complete visual and historical survey. Later I find it in print in the Oxford Bookshop.

St. John's Church

Near here is St. John's, known as the Stone Church, which was built in the 1780s and (like others here) loosely based on London's St. Martin in the Fields. To enter the grounds I part with Rs. 20, which I suspect goes into the pocket of the  chowkidar (gatekeeper) as he omits to issue a ticket. I photograph his colleague soundly asleep on a bench. It's a stately church, well cared for in lush gardens, and it houses a large and important Last Supper painting by Zoffany, recently restored by the Goethe Institute. Apparently the artist based the apostles' faces on local bigwigs of the day, only to be taken to court by the City Auctioneer who resented being immortalised as Judas. The church's monuments and hatchments read like a roll-call of the British aristocracy of the day. In the grounds is the mausoleum of Job Charnock, d. 1692, who is said to have founded the city on behalf of the British East India Company. There's also an obelisk to the victims of the Black Hole (1756), but that's a long and controversial story.

My lunch stop

I'm learning never to be surprised by anything much. Take for instance the line of letter-writers on Lal Bazaar Road, sitting on stools in the street tapping out letters (or form filling) on ancient Remington typewriters. This is a service they provide for illiterate people who are struggling with Indian bureaucracy. (I encounter the latter a little later when, to gain admission to the Armenian Church. I must first fill out a ledger with name, address, nationality, date of birth and religion. I am then closely followed round by three guards; a bit creepy). Or the street bathers, like the man stripped to his smalls, lathering himself and showering under the gushing water of a standpipe. (Which reminds that I am at last able to purchase a pair of Big Boss pants on a stall outside the Old Mission Church (1770). And there's the pavement food, cooked over a blazing charcoal stove, washed down with tea from little clays pots which are then thrown and smashed in the street. It's lunchtime, and I enjoy a meal of parathas (a sort of crispy pancake) with a delicious vegetable stew followed by slices of papaya sprinkled with salt and eaten off a leaf. Total Rs. 20 (22p.)

Rabindra Street; note Calcutta-style hand rickshaw

From BBG I head north, pausing to take a surreptitious close-up photo of the famous Writers Building, where thousands of lowly English clerks once toiled for the Raj. Photographing this iconic government building is illegal, and even "loitering" can result in arrest. From here, I continue through the packed Chinese Bazaar (though most of the Chinese fled in 1962) and on as far as the Howrah Bridge before forcing my way through the crowds back towards the Metro via Rabindra Street. I'm the only non-Indian, though nobody pays me any attention. At one point I take a short cut through alleys of butchers' shops. Not for the squeamish. I've never before seen rows of little domed animal brains lined up on a slab. There are tethered goats and chickens in cages, who seem so blithely unaware of their imminent fate that I feel I should warn them, but they are probably too brainless.

Evening visit to the internet cafe, a small and rather intimate cubby hole not designed for privacy. So I can't help noticing that the young man at the next computer is checking out a gay dating site peppered with pictures of other young men in pants. He tries 'phoning a couple of them on his mobile, but without any obvious success. Nearby, I collect my laundry and pay र्100 (£1.10). It is beautifully pressed, interleaved with newspaper, and smells freshly of washing powder. For dinner I choose the fish option, and, for a treat, finish with a Honey Bee Indian Brandy, deliciously smooth and with no sting in its tail.

Transports of Delight

(Or, Delights of Transport).  I have taken exactly 120 photos today. Start off with standard issue omelette on the roof terrace watching schoolgirls doing their gym exercises (!) also on a roof nearby (think Carry on Camping minus the denouement). The guesthouse does not offer a laundry service but direct me to a backstreet dhobi where I leave my smalls. A young Aussie couple say they "never have laundry done because it always comes back smelling of India".

Legs are mine

Today I have sampled most types of transport on offer in the city. I start with a hand-pulled rickshaw which, despite its beautiful simplicity, I find uncomfortable - its tyres are solid, and the idea of being pulled through the streets by a barefoot pavement dweller gnaws at my social conscience. Still, a job's a job, and I know I paid him well over the odds. Then to the Metro which is fast, clean, airy, and socialist. It was funded in the 1980s by the city's former Communist government and based on the glorious Moscow model, but without the chandeliers. I go a couple of stops, which costs Rs. 6 (7p.) How about that, Boris?

Allowed on the Calcutta Metro: "small items of personal luggage such as laptop computers, camcorders, tiffin tins, attache cases, walking sticks for personal use and umbrellas (preferably folded)."

Inside St. Paul's

I'm at the bottom end of the Maidan looking for St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral. It's midday, and I actually hear it first - the familiar Westminster chime with deep dongs. Then I catch sight of the tower through the trees and am quite taken aback by the beauty of its pristine white-painted Gothic tower. I think of Magdalen College, Oxford, though the model was Canterbury. Both outside and in, it's a minor masterpiece of early Victorian gothic, complete with  handsome monuments and windows by Burne Jones, more resembling a spacious college chapel than a cathedral. It's also where Sara's paternal grandfather was baptised, and her great-grandparents were married in the 1870s, so I'm here in part to pay my respects. It worthy in a typically Anglican way, with a training scheme for "differently-abled people" and an Advent carol service pending. Dr Rowan Williams visited last October.

What smiles !

I walk along the Maidan, where cricket is being played in whites, ponies are grazing, and carriage rides are on offer, but pulled by disturbingly emaciated horses. The Victoria Monument is no mere monument, it is of cathedral-like proportions, much bigger than the actual cathedral. It is set at the heart of vast and beautiful gardens with ornamental lakes, avenues of trees, exotic flowerbeds which are very well used by entwined couples who occupy almost every bench. I am hailed by young Rakesh Kumar and his "not my girlfriend" girl friend, though they hold hands. They want photos of / by / with me, so I oblige. Rakesh asks how old I am, and I ask him to guess. He says 70. I grimace and say, no, only 63. "Then you are not looking good," he says. Maybe it was those yellow pills. The Monument was planned by Lord Curzon within weeks of Victoria's death, to be "stately, spacious, monumental and grand........where all classes will learn the lessons of history and see revived before their eyes the marvels of the past." Today it houses galleries of prints and paintings and a detailed if slightly faded exhibition on the history of the city.

Howrah Bridge from the ferry landing stage

I take a taxi (yellow Ambassador, of course) to Babu Ghat on the banks of the Hooghly River (alias Ganges), then a ferry across to Howrah, and another upstream, under the Howrah Bridge to Ahiritola Ghat. It's cool and fresh on the river as the old ferryboat ploughs up against the powerful stream, and I think of Sara's G/Grandfather commanding his pilot cutter on these same waters 150 years ago.

In those days (as paintings in the Monument Galleries show) the waterfront was lined with the splendid mansions of company grandees and local aristocracy, and I've come to see what is left. Surprisingly, there are still many once fine houses facing the river and in the narrow lanes behind, but in a state of almost complete desolation. I think the current occupants are bemused to see this oldish (70?) "feringhee" photographing their crumbling homes, but they are tolerant enough to ignore my eccentricity. I wander freely round the narrower backstreets where the ground floor of every building thrums wth people hard at work making things - tables and stools, ceremonial fly-whisks for poojas, drop-spindle spinning, tailoring, printing on hand presses. Outside, the streets are taken over by children playing cricket (what else?), but there are also yards with swings and slides and instructional wall paintings such as a freshly-painted illustration of the solar system labelled in Bengali and English. Decay and regeneration live cheek by jowl. And, in case you wonder, the streets are passably clean and well swept.

A piece of transport history

By the time I emerge onto a wider thoroughfare, it is dark. I look for a taxi, but then notice tramlines in the road. Strange. My map shows no tram route here, but I wait, and after about five minutes a twin-car tram comes rumbling along, so I hop aboard, ask for Terminus (can't go wrong) and pay my Rs. 5 fare. If ever there was a transport of delight, this has to be it. The tram grinds slowly along the narrow street, at times barely squeezing between the clog of  cars and buses, laden carts and hand rickshaws carrying fat rich children home from school. The tram bell rings out to warn pedestrians, but there are some near misses. It is standing room only and quite snug though not overcrowded, but a man gets up to let me sit in the "elderly and handicapped" seat. For me, this is a transport museum reincarnated. Incredibly, it is one of the original Calcutta tramcars, bearing the manufacturer's name plate and date 1882. Surely one of the oldest public service vehicles still in daily use.

Dine at Tung Fong Restaurant, just down the road. I'm the only paleface; all the rest are Indians. This is about the most exquisite setting I've ever eaten in. The dining room is a tall marble hall with a centrepiece canopy supported by squat pillars with gold dragon capitals and a shallow dome covered in gold leaf. There are huge Chinese vases stuffed with fresh flowers, displays of netsuke figures, and the waiters are dressed in black silk like exotic missionaries. The food is pretty good too (especially the caramelised walnuts with vanilla ice) and even the beer is a "gold blend." I emerge with ample change from a tenner and tread carefully to avoid disturbing the dreams of pavement sleepers.

St. Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta

St. Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta

Monday: Oh Kolkata !

Calcutta is now officially named Kolkata, with the emphasis on the first syllable. Most people here still use the former colonial form, however, so I'll follow suit.

The train is running late. I have my shoes cleaned (Rs. 10), breakfast on hard boiled egg and buttered bread called "toast", and watch the West Bengal landscape unfold. It is flat and fertile, a patchwork of little fields demarcated by low grassy ridges. Harvest is in full swing, and knots of people are working along the lines of paddy with hand sickles, laying it in sheaves to dry. Some are propped into stooks, and there are tall square straw stacks under a clump of trees. I spot a modern red tractor pulling a cultivator and several cream oxen ploughing in pairs. Incongruously, a trackside shelter carries a hand-painted advert for Jon vests and Big Boss Premier Underwear.

Howrah Station is possibly, after Grand Central, the world's most famous train station. It's certainly one of the biggest and looks like a castle - the British built stations so they could be defended if need be. 2.5 m. people pass through here every day. Howrah is also said to be home to up to 3000 glue-sniffing feral children who live on or under the platforms and trucks in the sidings. Allegedly they pounce on every newly-arrived train, and watch out for rich pickings from lost-looking westen tourists. So I engage a porter (they enter the carriage looking for custom before we even stop) who monstrously overcharges me but leads me to the pre-paid taxi booth, my suitcace on his head. 

Howrah Station, southern end. It disappears off the picture to the right

In fact, the station concourse at 11.30 am is clean, orderly and much less crowded than Delhi. But the queue for the taxis is long and slow, despite lines of waiting taxis. Blame the petty bureaucrats. First I buy a taxi ticket, copied in triplicate (me, driver and officialdum). Then I wait for the taxi-finder, who must sign off all three copies, identify a taxi, and write down its number and mine in his ledger before pointing me towards the hapless driver. Though the ticket is clearly marked "Royd Street", with apropriate fee of Rs. 90 paid, he hasn't a clue where to go. We cross the famous Howrah Bridge and head south. Eventually he pulls up. "Here," he says. "Where?" I ask. This is going nowhere, and nor am I. I show him the ticket and stab at the name Royd with my finger, but he can't read it (it's in English, not Bengali). It's obvious we are nowhere near Royd Street and he doesn't even recognise the name, which he pronounces "Loyder" as he attempts to ask the way. Calcutta cabbies clearly don't do "the knowledge". He wants me to get out, but I refuse and dig out my street map. I show Driver the map, but he doesn't understand that either, and tuts loudly. We move on, then repeat the charade, but this time I spot a landmark and am able to guide Driver pointing left and right until we get hopelessly caught in a one-way system not shown on the map...

Enough. We end up finding the place, not a moment too soon. It is, you may say, satisfactory. Actually, I'm feeling quite bolshie by now and insist on a choice of rooms, then complain that the sheets are grey - well, off white - and get them to change the pillowcases. The Sunflower Guesthouse is a slightly decayed example of 1930s exuberance with a magnificent staircase and a clanky lift like the one in Guy and Smith's Grimsby store which crushed my fingers as a child. It isn't quite what it is cracked up to be, but you can't expect too much for £12 a night, even in Calcutta. Successive generations of electricians have added to the wiring, and my little room has seventeen switches. But the location is excellent, a shortish walk from Sudder Street (Calcutta's backpackerland) but just off the tourist trail. And there are no beggars. I'm sorry if this sounds callous, but the begging fraternity (tightly controlled by their gang-masters) congregate almost exclusively on the city's most tourist-trodden streets, and I have already run out of Rs. 10 notes.

Later, I walk round a few blocks. It seems so clean after Varanasi! I cross to the Maidan, the long park that runs through the city centre from north to south, where roped-off freshly watered cricket pitches and practice nets remind me of school. I sit on a lawn roller outside the Income Tax Sports and Recreation Club and enjoy some solitude.

This evening I eat at the nearest place that serves beer (and an excellent mild fish curry too). Mark from Hamburg engages me in conversation from the next table. He's a maths teacher having a sabattical to develop his skills as an artist and already has a well-filled sketchbook. He's been in India for two months, mostly in Calcutta, which he loves, though he spent a week or so in Puri (my final destination) where he stayed at the same hotel I have booked. Mark is incredibly tall, so tall that he bumps his head on the restaurant ceiling and has to stoop (Bengalis are low people). He has a thing about insects, especially mosquitoes, which he pronounces "moss kwee toes". He drinks a lot of tonic water for the quinine. We discuss nets (which are not generally used here). Taking no chances, Mark has brought an efficient German moss kwee toe net with him. He claims that it protected him against bed bugs in his first guesthouse, but some got into his clothing, he says. The blighters infected him with something nasty from which he's only just recovered. Poor Mark.