Interpreter of Maladies
Saturday, November 26, 2005
City surfingIts been sometime since I unraveled the stories of Cal-the city. Infact, I never did have a chance to see so much of the city ever since I came here. Few days back, discovered a long lost friend who happens to be in Cal, the irony being, she lives at least 2.5 hours away from Joka-in the other end of the city-Salt Lake. So though she means the world to me and spending quality time with her is a great idea, I cant do much about it. Today though, she sprang a surprise on me by visiting the campus. With a campus that does not have "much" to offer, we decided to explore Cal. Not that we had a whale of time in hand but the weather was pretty and I was not sleepy (quite an exception) so to Cal it was. As I am living with slim margins these days (spent enormous amount of money for some plane tickets :D), was in no mood to sqaunder 100s on taxis. Took a bus to Taratalla but got down at Sakher Bazaar itself to catch an auto to Tollygunge. This happens to be the closest (misused in this context) metro station to Joka. After a short walk, reached the station. Waited in an endless queue to get two tickets to M.G. Road. The initial plan was to go to this market in the city which is supposed to be hub of exotic, out of print books and I realized that I was tempted to procure some nice ones for my collection. Now this book place happens to be in College street which is parallel to the metro station of M.G. Road, which again is the 11th station on the metro route from Tollygunge so we were sitting and sitting and waiting for what seemed eternity before the robotic female voice in the train said "The next station is M.G. Road. The gates open on the right hand side". Metros are good timepass in Cal (given u have the time to pass). People of all sorts travel in Metro. From a tired looking school girl coming back from her tuitions to the two lovebirds cuddled in a corner of the train...makes for some good observations :D. Then there was a Bong woman screaming non stop at her kids and the kids in turn, fighting for what seemed like a chocolate bar. Well, my observations didnt last long and we were at M.G. Road finally. Now Cal's M.G. Road isnt like M.G. Roads at other places (its even worse than the one at Kanpur..the city perceived to be low tech, non metro..what not !!). Its narrow, dimly lit and is strewn with potholes. There are some gawdy looking shops selling sarees etc. The place had a North Indian feel to it. Dont know why. It feels at home to see/feel/hear nething remotely North Indian in Cal. So we walked to college street but realized that it wasnt really as parallel as we thought (not like the F.C. Road/J.M. road parallelity in Pune) so took an auto to cover the distance. The auto ride scared me enough to drop the thrill of buying books. By the time we reached college street it was already 6ish. The market happened to be more of a place to procure cheap academic books rather than a book shopper's delite. After an hour spent in staring at ICSE, ISC, JEE, CAT books, we found out that the "our kind of books" market was located another 10 minutes walk from that street. I made the effort and was sadly disappointed. Not real good books but yeah I got one of the books that I was looking for. MY LIFE by Bill Clinton. That will keep me busy enough till the next month. Realized then that both of us were really hungry and College Street being the damp, dingy place as it looked like, we decided to finally surrender and take a taxi to Park Street-this still being the only address I know of in Cal which comes close to being the street of a Metro. Decided to eat at ONE STEP UP-a multicuisine and well lit place. I have this obsession with well lit streets/restaurants/rooms that is nowhere close to dying down-just hate low lights. The food was good-baked pasta with tomato sauce. Never had baked pasta and it seems like a quirky dish worth a try in the kitchen. Park Street is a great place for ancient restaurants. For those who have seen Parineeta-Trincas, Moulin Rouge and Flurys are all here and yeah, they are still pretty much untouched by the winds of time-amazing !! After the sumptuous meal, had pastry and coffee at Flurys. This is a small place with neatly dressed waiters carrying steel kettles. The small tables have pink candles-mebbe because Flurys has its logo in pink. The decor is old. A couple of elegant chandeliers lighting up the place and a neat stack of pastries you can drool upon. So after drooling and contemplating we narrowed down our choices to a mud pie and fudge with a black coffee. All set and full then, I bade my friend good night promising to visit Salt Lake someday. When, I dont know...
