Through the veins of Calcutta!

The long awaited visit to the cultural capital of India, thus came with a spry and soon we found ourselves in the middle of a heritage less perforated by any western sophistication.

It was the marriage of our test lead Ananda with Ruby and it was an opportunity for us to have a preview of the land of the Bengalis, people who have immensely contributed to the culture and prosperity of our country. We were a group of seven from Windows Fax team from Microsoft India, consisting of Anand, Ajay, Naresh, Nilesh, Raghav, Renu and Myself. We did a good planning for flying, but Airdeccan was as usual sluggish in taking us on time. Seemed like they never bothered to take up punctuality in their list of qualities.

After a two-hour journey from Hyderabad, we landed in Calcutta, newly named as Kolkota, with the ‘o’ phonetically stressed, which signified Bengali articulation. Archan, our colleague and a resident of the city, with Manoj, our dev lead, who had landed in the city the day before, were there to receive us at the airport. Thus our exploration began…

From the list of items to visit, the first destination was Saurabh Ganguly’s restaurant, named Saurabhs. We were late for the lunch, but never wanted to start off our journey without filled bowels. There was a bit of confusion on the availability of buffet and we were misguided by the receptionist, which culminated in abandoning the restaurant. Finally, we crossed the road to have lunch at Golden Spoon, a typical Bengali restaurant. The food did not meet our expectations, but was ok for that time of the day. Later, we started off to have a preview of the whole city. We went over the old Howrah bridge, which stood as a mark of the city. The bridge was a marvel of perfect British engineering and fascinated us with the technology it hosted to carry along the heaviest, without any support from the Hoogly river. Later we moved across the new Howrah bridge. I did not miss the opportunity to take the beautiful snaps of the catenary, over the gleaming waters of the hoogly river basking in the dusk.

It was over 6 O clock, when we reached our roosting place in Saltlake, a residential locality where Archan stayed. Renu got separated at the airport, to meet her uncle and we were seven of us again together, with Archan to get all the data of the places to visit and then “mismanage” our trip. We were getting late for the marriage ceremony and hence rushed ourselves pulling over the kurtas and pyjamas!


The marriage was a pleasant experience for most of us, but a heavy experience for Nilesh, who dared to support, with three others, the ceremony of bringing the bride seated over a thick flat board, from her room and then making seven circles around the groom. The bride had covered her face with beetle leaves. She should not uncover her face until she made seven rounds over the groom, and then come face to face. At last, the hepta circles were over and the bride came in front of the groom and other interesting ceremonies started… we all slowly moved on to have food. The dinner reflected the richness of Bengali cuisine, with varieties of fish and mutton. Though chicken was also a favorite item, it was a bad time for chicken dishes due to the outbreak of bird flu across the country.

We reached back to our residence around 11 and then started the excitement of card games. It was the biggest excitement of the day, when we all wanted to have a brain dump game and Manoj came up with the idea of the “snatching spoon”. The game took off to its pinnacle when Ajay became the “donkey” and later graduating to complete “dumbbell” when Naresh and Ajay had to fight for the spoon. We all became donkeys one by one and finally Nilesh, Naresh and Manoj remained. It still hangs around in my mind, a tensed Nilesh, snatching the spoon from Manoj, with all the strength from his thick muscles and uttering his typical dialogue “Kya ho raha hey iss desh mein” at times… Naresh and Manoj came out as winners and we all slept at 2:30 am, thus closing the chapter of day one…