Day 3 -Shasti

After spending the day eating and sleeping only feels like heaven.

We made a move at 8 for Salt lake city gosh its all round and round and how much if the pandals u see its less till 4:30 am saw pandals in Salt lake city and made a move to for north Kolkata or old kolkata buildings architctured in the old british style saw pandals at mohmadh ali park, college road and other pandals which i dont remember the names

links for the pics would be published soon now I am too tired now the last night hangover is still on slept for like 10 hours catch u all later.

Kolkata Day 2- Panchami

Day 2:-

I must tell you guys October has just set in hear in Kolkata but it is terribly hot hear and Humid.
Early Sunrise wakes you up.Today is the day when all the Pandals would bring in the idols and the Puja would begin.

Went in for a brief walk with Saikat got a pre - puja lookup at the pandals in the nearing bylanes man what decorations these people have awesome.Every pandal has its own different flavor of decorations and its all colorful and the lights wao.
The idols are brought into the pandals on  Panchami and stapana puja is done.But the idols do not have any weapons in their hands and thats a tradition in West Bengal(WB) is what I got know.The weapons would be placed on the sixth (shasti) day.

Well we set out at 6:30 from home  for Kolkata city the its dazzling with lights.But I must tell you buts its horribly hot and humid and we have Rimly crying her way out Giving a tough time to Sujata.We caught up with Anuraj,Ritu,Aryan,Bappa and Mani at the Central Calutta junction. Till them Niladrida took me to see the nearby by Pandal themed on an tribal village but must tell u guys one thing I can find my ways in a much better way here as Niluda got me exercising by taking a wrong turn on the foot over bridge going up and down.Finally after all late latif meet we made a move decided to get dinner as restraunts in Kolkata close at 11:30 and went off to Mainland China for authentic chinese food now most of u must be wondering Kolkata and Chinese but ya majority female population wanted to have chinese kya kare :(

As Rimly was giving all of us a tough time we decided to drop off Rimly and Sujata to her brothers flat and we made a move at 11:30.Pandals hear are theme based so first we saw one with Aluminium and them with cloth another one in the form of Dakineshwar temple and the one which was the most hyped of which I read in Times back home but trust me it was nothing it was a highway what a disappointment. Saw many more will put in the Picasa link soon

But must say the city is all alive at 3AM in the morning with traffic jams .There are melas next to every pandal with roadside shops open feels like you are on juhu chowpati minus the beach :)

It was all fun rooming in the car with frnds and  watching the sun come up It dawn and dusk at 5:30 here dropped of Saikat at his in laws and we made our way back home all drowsy after the night out. From all the inputs that I got from Saikat and his friends about the pandals in Salt lake city area of Kolkata, I am all excited about the Sashti Puja to be seen.

Kolkata Day 1- Love in Air

Before people jump to conclusions based on the title I am not in Love with any stranger that I meet at airport or on the flight nor I m in love with Kolkata city at first sight it is still to sink in

This is for the two young people sitting next to me.Both almost at an age to get married a typical filmi style live picture I got to saw on my flight.

Flight Story : long and short of it

I had settled in my seat next to the window reading Yes Minister and then there's the entry of  this  average looking guy with his notebook sits on seat next to the aisle and there comes "Hi" which I barely heard and gave him a Do I know u a look :) and continued to read my book then comes our Heroin  last one to enter the flight all hassled with the huge sack on her back and one hand baggage locates her seat and to her despair no space in the cabin now what and our hero swings into action makes space for her keeps her bags into the cabin and finally both settle in their seats.Now our Flight is ready to take off and in a few minutes we are airborne but  young couple have already hit off and throughout the flight both are continuously chatting their hearts away no issues with that but the one last topic that I would want to hear on any vacation as a bachelor is Marriage and these two were sitting right next to me were discussing it at its length and breadth.
One thing that I observed on my flight is people have literally forgotten to remain slight I could hear the  conversation of people sitting next ,people behind me and people ahead of me and ahead of them phew.

If thing work out for the two stranger love birds I wish them a happy life together nd otherwise also :)

So finally I  landed in Kolkata (first time in the life that I have lived the flight took off on time and landed before time what can ) picked up my baggage and stood up in the queue for the prepaid taxi as instructed by my frnd Saikat :) but due to durga puja there was traffic on roads(poor Saikat stayed in the cab for 5 hours inclusive of the return journey) and hence no prepaid taxi available so called him up and told him to ask if the cab in which we were traveling would drive us back which he readily agreed at an extra of Rs.50 on the total fare. So I left the queue and went straight out and the cab was there the very old ambassador car hoped in as quickly as i could and we took off chit chatting and he showing me intermittently a few prime Calcutta locations with intermittent phone calls from Sandeep on the ongoing issues.Ah I forgot to mention that Saikat stays in Howrah so we were off and all off a sudden the Cabbie halted at the petrol pump to refill and one thing that caught my eye was the electronic meter beeping the amount and then came the googly Saikat was like Mads you must be thinking that the fair till now is that amount right and I was like yes and he had this huge big smile and like know multiply that amount by 2 and 2 more and +  the 50 more that we were to give as a part of the bargain and it boiled to 800 almost till the time we got home.Man these people surely know to  get that money out of our pockets.

We got off at our destined location and surprise we were to go another 15 mins either on foot or by the rickshaw driven by a cycle.We were lucky we got one rickshaw and after moving through the by lanes in Howrah we were finally home almost after 2.5 hours of a very tiring journey.

Freshened up had a beautiful home cooked typical Bengali dinner with Rashgola and went off to bed all excited for visit to the pandals on Day 2...

And ya one more thing that I learnt is Rashgola costs like Rs.2 per peice.