TURQUOISE CHILL

Day 28, Sep 28, 06: Kolkata: Yesterday was quite a boring day except for the fact that I was completely stressed about my whole bank fiasco. The rest of the day passed without much incident apart from the Rolls at Park Street and lunch at Song Hay. But today’s high point has got to be OLYPUB . Jaideep and Mainak had been raving about this place ever since I got here. Of course I had heard about OLY even while I was in Delhi and on various previous visits to the city, but never had the opportunity to head there. We finally did today. The place is like the Destination for the hard working executive or the cash strapped college kids. The fish fingers and Chicken Reshmai kebab is splendid. Unlimited Chana chur goes without saying, as is customary in a lot of Kolkata bars. The plate just keeps getting replenished. But what is out of this world is the Mustard Sauce . I’ve finally come to a place where the mustard sauce sends that pungent salvo up your nostrils and opens up the “tear gates”. ...

Day 27, Sep 27, 06: Kolkata: Yesterday I got the fright of my life. The joy of depositing my first pay check was shattered by the trauma of no means of withdrawing my money. Well here’s what happened. Shortly after depositing my cheque at the teller, I decided to check my balance at the ATM outside the branch. Well all went smoothly, till at the end of the transaction the machine swallow up my card and asked me to go to the nearest branch for assistance. So I went in and after locating the person in charge of such matters was assured that I’d get it back. I just needed to come back in half an hour or so. I headed back to office and several hours later returned to the Bank. I was shocked to hear the person telling me that my card had been hot listed, whatever that meant. So I wouldn’t get it back. I thought I’d talk my way out of this one and get it back only to be shocked by his answer that the card had been destroyed as was the procedure for all cards that had been hot listed. Man, I ...

A quick trip to Head Office to finally get my permanent entry permit into the building brought me face to face with this beauty. It must be the MD’s car; the new Toyota Camry . This model is a quantum leap from its predecessor which looked more like a boat. This mean machine looks like it’s ready to leap ahead and chew miles and miles of tarmac. I wonder where it will achieve that feat in Kolkata though? So while we were discussing in sheer paranoia, the future of the young adolescent absconding from home and out with his friends, my younger aunt was celebrating the completion of yet another one of her gargantuan puzzles.

Day 26, Sep 26, 06: Kolkata: There’s nothing like pictures. Though yesterday was quite a boring day all together, it did have an exciting end to it. We were asked to wait a bit and our finance guy gave us our pay-checks for the month. Yippie! My first pay-check in Kolkata and the government takes quite a bit away from it too. Apart from that, my teenage cousin is driving my aunt crazy. He didn’t come back home yesterday as he had gone out to a friends place. I realise now, how I drove my dad up the wall back then. But I guess that’s the joy of teenage life and better still for her to experience the joy of having a teenage son. A bit of high BP is mandatory for all parents; I guess it acts as a rejuvenator at that age. Ok it seems like am making fun here, but I guess everyone’s got to go through it. It’s part and parcel of bringing up children. If you enjoyed cuddling them in your arms, you’ve got to accept the impending monsters they are going to become in these troubling adolescent ye...

Day 25, Sep 25, 06: Kolkata: I think this Saturday working thing just makes the weekend fly-by in a haze. Before Sunday begins, it seems like I’m on my way to office on a Monday morning and usually at the gates the earliest, waiting for the shutters to go up. Anyway Saturday was quite a lazy kind of days and we went out for Momos on Elgin Road , the Mecca of great momos. About three plates of Momos and a bowl of Thupka for lunch and I was done in. Got back home and then headed out to Chandni Market to buy a hard disk for the computer at home. Man that market is bustling with people. The shops seem to be overflowing into the road. The crazy part is that suddenly from within the sea of humanity you have a hand rickshaw guy tingling away on his little bell, or even worse, a bike or scooter fella laden with wares trying to manoeuvre his way through. Chandni Market is famous for all things electronic and electrical and maybe more. I have never seen so many different DVD players in my life ...

Day 23, Sep 23, 06: Kolkata: Yesterday after finally reaching office when it had let up a bit, we decided to leave early as it was a holiday at most places and the turnout in office was also minimal and the office mood was dismal. Kartik and I finally have come to consensus on the name of our Pan wallah. The debate was whether we’d name him or Mishraji, our driver, “OMKARA”. The pan guy was unanimously voted. So at about a bit past 4 pm when we decided to leave the rain started pelting down even harder and by the time we reached Amrit’s place on Theatre Road, it was inundated. So we guys spent the rest of the evening playing “Pool”. It’s been quite a while since I last played, but not before long I was hitting pull shots and both our games began sharpening up. I also got a grand tour of the house. It’s huge and old and the ceilings are as high as the sky. Imagine wooden staircases and several feet thick walls. The house is probably about a hundred odd years old and doesn’t have any pil...

Day 22, Sep 22, 06: Kolkata: I’m glad I learnt how to swim when I was young. Even more glad that I live high up. After a quick drink last night at Park Hotel’s Some Place Else, which is Kolkata’s watering hole for Rockers, it seems the city was getting watered down. The rain hadn’t stopped yet. I decided to call it a night as soon as I was done with dinner. Ok maybe a couple of late night text msg’s did happen closer to midnight, but what the heck. My sleep was broken by the early morning singing on the Radio. 4 am and Mahalaya was being broadcast on the Radio. Tried to put in some shuteye but was dragged out to the verandah by my aunt. Wow, when did this happen? How did this happen? The road had been replaced by a River. My eyes popped at the sight. I quickly grabbed my Phone and started clicking pictures. I spent the next five hours in the Balcony, watching how a Deluged city got back on its feet. Lucky that quite a few places have a holiday today. It could’ve been worse. The water f...

Day 21, Sep 21, 06: Kolkata: What I’ve been enjoying since last evening is playing the guitar. One of Rahul’s friends (Danny) has left his guitar back at our place. So I’ve been just playing around with it. It’s fun to play an electric guitar. I think I’m going to start to hone my musical skills with all this time I have on my hands. Anyway this morning when I looked out, there was a consistent drizzle outside. Who’s afraid of a little water was my thought when I headed down the stairs? By the time I had reached the gate, it was a full blown downpour. These rain gods also have their ears peeled to our thoughts through those menacing grey clouds. So I headed straight back up five floors and waited patiently for the rain to subside a bit. It took twenty odd minutes and I was back out crossing the ever busy Park Street to catch a cab. There were several tucked in on Bright Street just off the main road. I approached one of them and enquired with the driver whether he’d go to Dalhousie. To...

Day 20, Sep 20, 06: Kolkata: After a lot of debate, we managed to come to a consensus, so Kartik and I followed Rajrishi to some dhaba he kept raving about. We were quite certain that today the Roti and Tadka dal was on the cards, but the enlightenment of better and newer fare for lunch made us follow him through a sea of people, across several road crossings and into a meandering narrow lane. As we entered the lane, ahead of us stood the impressive 4 Mangoe Lane the Address in shiny Brass letters against the enamel White building. Beside this stood a building under construction, must’ve been 5 or more floors. In the mêlée of all that construction work, tucked in the right hand corner on the ground floor was a KAKA TEA stall. Bustling with a people, eating, ordering, watching, chatting over food. Rotis, a plethora of vegetarian dishes, I counted some 3-4 paneer preparations, all on display on one side. South Indian Food on the other, mishtis at the entrance and the famous “Chai” stall ...

I completely forgot the other high point of the day. We got our new digital camera for the office - Canon Powershot A530. Amrit immediately wanted to check out how the thing works and excitedly clicked a couple of shots and as usual got bored with it in several minutes. I guess a digital camera is a digital camera. It’s a bsic 5.0 megapixel with Retractable 4x optical zoom with 4x digital zoom. We have Kartik as usual trying to crack some complicated financial cost benefit thingy. He always seems to be crunching numbers in front of his laptop. Amrit even walked over in front of my wroksation and clicked one of me. Not really one for GQ yet! Oh another hilarious incident was in the evening riding in the car and Kartik in animated conversation talking to the broker. I was so convinced that he was speaking in Tamilian that it came as a shock to me when he told me it was Gujarati. Ever met a Tamilian who speaks fluent Guju?

Day 19, Sep 19, 06: Kolkata: Three people’s birthdays on this day, my brother’s, Sheldon’s and one of my aunt’s, would you believe the chances of that happening? So wishing over with on the phone, I headed to work. It was quite the normal day. Except for the fact that Amrit and I headed to Chung Wah for lunch. Man the portions there are enormous. I’m not going to talk about prices any more as it seems to have annoyed quite a few people reading. But I just want to say is that I was stuffed. That evening Kartik and myself went to watch Lagey Raho Munna Bhai with a couple of colleagues from our Head Office. The movie was nice and I finally got to go to FORUM. Everyone’s been raving about FORUM since I got here. Well yeah ok so it’s a mall, but I’ve seen bigger ones and City Centre in Salt Lake is way better. Anyway a quick bite of Vada Pao, Papdi Chaat and stuff at the food court and we headed into to watch the movie armed to the teeth with pop-corn and coke. The movie was well packaged i...

Day 18, Sep 18, 06: Kolkata: I have managed to get some discipline into my life it seems; early to bed and early to rise. So I wasn’t surprised this morning when my eyes opened at 5.30 am. I did stay in bed till 6 am though, but that was it. It seems uncanny, but true it is. As usual I was out in the veranda sipping my morning tea when I heard a strange sound from down below. I was used to the sirens blaring, and the holed up silencers from buses & garbage trucks rambling, but this buzzing sound was completely new. So I went to the window and to my surprise. There were two trucks all hi-tech and all cleaning the streets. I rushed in to grab my phone (well this has become my weapon of choice now) and came back to click a picture. Kolkata is a far cry from what I had left back straight after school. That was the high point of the day. Needles to say I still enjoyed the ride to office. I’ve now devised a new strategy. I just plug my ears and listen to music all the way to work in the ...

Day 17, Sep 17, 06: Kolkata: Though I hit the sack early on Saturday night, which might come as more of a shock to all of you, I greeted Sunday morning rather late. (I surfaced at 9 am, rather shocking by my Kolkata standards and even more shocking by my Delhi standards). Once up, quick breakfast of Luchi-Torkari (equivalent of Puri-Aloo) and the rest of the day followed chit-chatting till lunch time. Gobindo-bhog rice pulao (Bengal’s equivalent to Basmati which give out a beautiful scent while cooking), chicken curry et al. Post lunch I had been craving to take a drive out on the Vidyasagar Setu. The bridge which was completed just before I left Kolkata 12 years ago, is Kokata’s pride and was presented about the same time as the Kolkata Metro. So Kolkata was flying over and under way before the rest of the country. I guess that’s where the saying “What Bengal thinks today the world does tomorrow” or something like that. The drive was a treat especially going from Park Circus till the ...

Day 15, Sep 15, 06: Kolkata: Thursday was a normal day; same old, same old - work-food-sleep and Calcutta streets. Friday posed an impending disaster. Rahul (my kid cousing brother) was inviting his friends over to spend the night for a musical extravaganza. The boys have just started playing music. Rahul on the drums and his best friend on the guitar kicked up quite a ruckus all night. I am trying to figure out the association with hard rock during teenage life. There seems to be some unwritten law somewhere in the process of growing up that says you have to go through the process of trying to form a band, growing long hair and just emulating all those tattoo ridden rockers if you want to score with the “chics”. Haven’t we all been there? Anyway I was just wishing that I didn’t have to go to work on Saturday, but I had to. It was quite a boring day at work and I still managed to be there till evening. I had to drop Kartik at Alipore. Some quiz thing he was trying to go to at IIM Joka....

Day 13, Sep 13, 06: Kolkata: Today completes a fortnight in Kolkata. And among the things I’ve missed the most is Media Nights at Turquoise Cottage. As might seem unbelievable to most of you guys, haven’t checked out any of the night life here yet. But from what I hear Tantra, Underground, Some Place Else, Big Ben and Dublin are the most rocking places and promise more clubbing than is possible in Delhi, but Turquoise Cottage rocks. Yesterday was a work filled day. Our project seems to be progressing now. Lunch was same place as Monday, but had Egg Curry and Rotis instead. Kartik tried out the Chola and Tadka Dal. Ok I can’t help but make you’ll wonder about the price. We paid Rs. 25/- total for the two of us. I still can’t fathom how they do it and still make a living. Not complaining though. So, all in all, yesterday was quite an uneventful day. This morning though, decided to occupy my time and started a project at home. The entire balcony is surrounded by huge glass windows. Saint ...

Day 12, Sep 12, 06: Kolkata: Monday morning blues. But not so blue for me, I was up and about at the crack of dawn. Nothing much happened on Monday, except the fact that we went back to the Rajbhawan Canteen and got some great Thali. Of course that led to post lunch drowsiness. But apart from that it was work as usual. Infact got some great work done for a change, even if I may say so. It came down again in the evening. Ah now I remember. About this eating thing; apart from eating themselves, it seems people love feeding too, especially stray cats and dogs. To the point that I noticed our neighbour throwing out food for the Kites on Sunday afternoon and they kept swooping down for a feed. [Pictures below] Today I worked on getting my new number; my standby Airtel Prepaid card was proving to be too expensive and running out of balance at critical times. So old faithful HUTCH it is back to and I’ve got my new number. Hopefully should be activated by evening. Let’s see? But before I forg...