Calcutta on Foot

February 01, 2023

Calcutta on Foot

Of the three cities in India that I experienced on my brief visit: Jaisalmer, in the arid west, was a picture of medieval, feudal, 12th century India; Delhi, in the north, of Mughal Empire India in the 16th-17th century; Calcutta, next to Bangladesh in the tropical east, of British Colonial India of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In Delhi, I zipped around in tuk-tuk's everywhere; in Calcutta I walked everywhere, totalling twenty miles in two days. I only really saw the older center of the city on the east side of the tidal Hooghly River.
On Saturday, I walked across the Howrah bridge from the train station on the west bank over to the center of the old city on the eastern shore. They have had to erect barriers around some of the big girders to shield them from the corrosive effect of thousands of people spitting. I guess a lot of Indians chew a tobacco mixture called gutkha, and the saliva it produces is pretty corrosive. Here's one of the guards, with a faded "no spitting" sign:

Coming down off the bridge on the east side, my path to the hotel took me through some market streets like in Delhi, with some of the same crazy overhead wiring as in Old Delhi.

...and the beginnings of some of the crumbling British-era buildings that dominate the old center:

I got to my hotel, the Oberoi Grand, an island of luxury and privilege surrounded by a large market that seemed mostly for clothes. I think I was one of the few to arrive on foot, but I was still greeted royally by the Sikh doorman (the hands together, the slight bow, and, reading "American" all over me, a "welcome.").

Inside, my room had a small balcony overlooking a palm-lined courtyard:

I was eager to explore the city, so I deposited my things in the room, emptied my day pack of inessentials, and headed back out. My hotel was on the edge of an enormous park called The Maidan, larger than Central Park in New York, and occupied by cricket pitches, a golf course, a horse racing track, gardens, and the Taj Mahal-like Victoria Memorial in the south end.

I was surprised that there were almost no auto rickshaws in the central part of Calcutta. In their place were thousands of these large-wheeled, yellow cabs, the Ambassador Taxis, made by the Hindustan Motor Company:

The balboa trees were everywhere; I think they're a great urban tree:

The park had some wide, straight central boulevards, and, like in Delhi, they were cleaning up after Republic Day festivities. There were miles of temporary bamboo structures, some I think must have been supports for banners:

My goal was the river, so I crossed the gigantic urban park from east to west, to the shores of the immense Hooghly River, which, although it is about 150 miles from its broad mouth on the Bay of Bengal, is still tidal at the city. The Howrah Bridge that I had walked across earlier from the train station is in the distance:

More specifically, I had learned that there are small boats for hire that will row you out into the river for a bit, and I wanted to get one around sunset. I ended up hiring the rightmost boat of these three:

...but it took a little convincing, because I think their biggest customers were couples looking for a romantic cruise, rather than an old guy who wanted some scenic pictures.

There was a guy in the front of the boat with a long bamboo pole and a guy in the back who propelled the wooden boat by sculling with a long oar. Depending on circumstance, wind, and tide, the bamboo-er assisted, but wasn't needed for our voyage. This was a bit of sculling in the still waters near the shore downstream a quarter mile, then a float on the upstream tidal current, and then sculling back to where we started by the shore.

My river cruise over (with no haggling over cost, surprisingly), I walked north along the bank of the river:

In the north end of the Maidan park is a bus terminal of some sort. I think this is the only video I have of the "Kolkata Staccato," a particular way of honking the horn in a long sequence of short blasts. I think think that drivers get their vehicles (it was mostly the buses, I think, that had them) outfitted to produce this with a separate horn button:

A little farther on, there were dozens of long-distance buses, many of them advertising sleeping accommodations. (I'm thinking Payson must be familiar with some of these). They also seemed to pick up money by hauling whatever freight they can strap to the roof: