Ask the question to the transport minister Subhas Chakraborty, who is now busy sorting out glitches on the path of the proposed East-West Metro. Chance is all you’ll receive is a blank stare from him. He must be a harried person because he has to convince the owners of 40 small furniture shops along a […]
Kolkata’s river
Anybody who hasn’t been to Kolkata including many in our country may find it hard to gauge that the city stands by a mighty river. The Hooghly river is not only snow-fed and therefore has water all round the year, it is also home to the play of tides from/to the Bay of Bengal. The […]
Kolkata is drenched
Confined at home on a rainy Sunday staring disparagingly at TV news disgustingly predicting looming possibility of mid-term general elections, what would a lazy person like me otherwise do? Most certainly topping the list would be walloping plateful of delicious khichuri with elish maachh bhaja, while coming a close second would be none other than […]
Kolkata’s fish market
The markets are ‘life-center’ of Kolkattans. If there are no markets, half the city’s life is gone. If you’re new to the city and haven’t been to its markets, especially the fish markets, you haven’t seen a vivid image of the city. Fish markets there are plenty. Having been to many places in the country, […]
Kolkata’s hoardings
Do hoardings create visual pollution? In Kolkata, yes. Certainly not in other big cities, especially in western countries. One still doesn’t understand the norm of billboards in Kolkata. At major crossings in the city there are billboards everywhere, notably those that adorn the buildings. Is it that the building owners only earn from them, or […]
Dalhousie Square
Talking of heritage buildings, the Dalhousie Square area abounds in a number of them with depleted glory. ‘Depleted’ because the place is so congested with unruly and unplanned traffic that there is no chance of decently observing them and partaking their architectural beauty. The din is too much for sanity to prevail, and the most […]
A hawking day starts
Without them the city lacks charm, or so we the Kolkattans have come to believe. The street hawkers are a tough lot. For each rupee they earn they’ve to toil hard. There are many pay-offs to be made including at least a decent something to arrange for food, cloth and shelter. The hawkers are seen […]
Everything that can go wrong
It must be close to 50 years that suburban trains are plying from Sealdah and Howrah, but passenger amenities have hardly improved over the years. Take a look at the 2 photos below of Baghajatin station on Sealdah’s South section. The platforms are narrow, and there is no decent seating arrangement for passengers. Further, unauthorized […]
Roadside bathing
For every person using his own place to bath, there must be several who perforce bath in the open. Nowhere is the picture so disarmingly vivid than in Kolkata where roadside bathing is a common scene to come across. This brings into focus the other reality. There are many slums in the city, and people […]
Fruitsellers
They are the poorer lot. They don’t have a permanent place of their own. If today they sit in the front of a saree store, tomorrow the place of hawking may as well be adjacent to the bookbinding shop. They are rarely part of unionized hawkers, and so they lack collective bargaining power. They however […]