Be Prepared to Walk & Laugh Anytime in Kolkata

I had got in to a cab at 12:55 pm, on Park Street to head out to Futnani Mansions to meet a supplier. I called the person and told him I’d be there in 15 minutes. The cab reached Free School Street in two minutes and turned left. Hardly 500 metres into Free School Street we were in the middle of absolute chaos. Traffic had come to a stand-still and the cab was along side one of the two huge Volvo buses that occupied most of the street.

After about 10 odd minutes sweating it out in the cab, I realised the problem that had hit this particular street. At 1 pm, the traffic on this street turns the other way. We had entered just a little before 1 pm while it was going towards New Market and now it had become a one way coming from New Market. The cops hadn’t cut of the traffic in time, so now the inflow of vehicles into the narrow crowded street had converged somewhere further down and had brought traffic to a grinding halt.

On realising this, I paid the cab driver 21 bucks (being short of Re. 1) which he was OK with and popped out and decided to walk in the hot sweltering sun. I had already been baked in the cab for the past 10 odd minutes so being out on the sidewalk was quite a relief. I walked briskly and in a few minutes came to the intersection where traffic had knotted up. Cars in all directions with a Sergeant on his Red Bullet 350 cc POLICE Motorcycle right in the midst of it shouting at cars in all directions. The moment he managed to get one car to back up another squeezed its way in from another direction. I stood and watched the commotion for a couple of minutes and found it quite hilarious. Soon some people also joined in trying to wriggle cars out of the mess, and all I was looking at was those two huge buses several hundred feet behind and kept wondering how they were going to get past this jigsaw.

Amused I walked on doubling my pace having already lost a lot of time in that traffic snarl. I took a left at street, came in front of new market and then took a right along side the market and finally came to S.N. Banerjee Road.

While I waited in front of the Bata Entrance opposite Elite Cinema, the poster of the film that was playing caught my eye. I read the name of the film twice and then just had to whip out my camera and capture this “AADMI AUR AURAT, ADAM AND EVE”. What made it funnier was the entire LUX COZI branding below the poster.

It was just too hilarious and I forgot all about that walk I had taken in the hot afternoon sun on the crowded streets of Kolkata.