Howrah Bridge

It was so exciting ! The cab turned and there we were ! On this Bridge which I had seen only in movies. It was the most romantic symbol of Calcutta hearthrobbingly brought to light by the old 60's movie 'Howrah Bridge' with the most beautiful Madhubala in it. Since then I had always dreamt of seeing this marvel.

It was exactly as I thought it would be - noisy, crowded and gorgeous. The setting sun on one side and the rising full moon on the Hoogly at dusk added sheer magic to the moment. Dozens of boats and millions of lights on the banks !

It is considered to be an engineering marvel, which took six years to construct in the 1940s. Over 2,590 metric tonnes of high tensile steel make-up this unique cantilever bridge that joins the main Railway Station (for Calcutta) and the industrial city of Howrah with the city of Calcutta. Supported by two piers, each nearly 90 meters in height above the road level, the bridge has a span of almost 500 meters (no pillars in the middle). It was opened in 1943 and today it is one of the busiest bridges in the world. It is the third largest bridge in the world, has around 2 million people crossing over it daily. Visible from many places in Calcutta, the bridge is called 'Rabindra Setu'.

Kolkata !

It is easy to understand why Calcutta is called a city with a soul. And its also easy to see why it is so easy to fall in love with this city - with its crumbling, old buildings, its beautiful but rusted grills, its caked with grime facades, its cobblestoned roads, rickety, ready to fall-apart buses, its truly out-dated, out-moded, rickshaws pulled by sweaty and labouring people, its mad traffic - taxis, pedestrians, buses, autos, rickshaws, pedestrians, all in a jumbled-senseless melee yet all surviving the cut-throat competition to get that one little opening where one can push through.

It is truly amazing.

Though the words may sound critical, they are not critical at all - they are only meant to paint the picture of what I saw. If there is a city I fell in love with instantaneously, it is Calcutta. The women beautiful, the men unnoticeable :). It is a city where one can feel the palpitating poverty. Bombay has its crumbling old buildings too. Its has its slums too. But Calcutta seems so much more different. There is no visible wealth here unlinke Bombay where it can be obscenely visible. The rural and colonial air of the city permeates through every layer. Its as if the city is caught in a time-warp. It looks forgotten. As if nobody really cares if this city dies or survives.The buses are a testimony to this. Rickety to the extreme and a design which must be at least a couple of centuries old (!), it looks as if Calcutta hasn't even seen, let alone caught up, with modern developments.Its a city I am sure to go again and again to. And I know deep inside that this first glimpse was only the first of many to come ...

Amsterdam !

If I could choose, I would like to be like Roos when I am 62. Roos is a grand lady, a friend of a friend, who is full of life and living. She could go dancing at 2 o'clock in the night and could invite positive attention from young people who wanted to dance with her ! Roos lived in this wonderful house, full of light and warmth, just as her heart. Set in three floors and an attic, it was close to a waterfront.

I loved Amsterdam, its beautiful waterways, boats, flowers and cycles.

Roos, took us to see the Tulip fields, as that's all I could think about ! And from there we went to a coastal village on the North Sea. The water was freezing and dipping our feet into the sea didn't seem like a good idea.

Saharsa

We met Ratneesh, from a local NGO, over a hot breakfast of Parathas with Sabzi, and many pyaalis of chai and got updated on the flood situation in Supaul and Madhepura. He gave us contacts of his team mates in Murliganj.

The travels guy had rustled up a macho black scorpio and we were off to the field areas. Premkumar, our driver, was initially a little sullen ... didn't change much though, inspite of all our efforts at making friends with him.

The highway was monotonous, with roadside slums, and a variety of occupations of the unorganised sector. Finally, after many hours, we were able to shake off the tentacles of urbanisation, and made inroads into the rural areas. Rural bihar is as beautiful as any rural area of the country. The villages were clean, mud houses with a variety of roof-tops, ranging from thatch, tiles to the ubiquous RCC, goats and cattle, carts full of hay ... and one felt enconsed in the romantic bollywoodian theme of the rural.

Bihar and water could be synonymous, notwithstanding the floods. There were many, many streams, rivers, snaking all across the flat landscape and one understood the meaning of the phrase 'river plain'. For a person with a background of hilly regions, seeing the horizon at such distance was amazing especially when the land below was carpeted with yellow mustard fields, and a variety of green.

Dusk came early. 4.30 p.m. and the light started fading. 5.30 and the fog started appearing. The journey in the dark was crazy - it was dark with the ghostly light of fog. But the dense fog made the road invisible. We drove at 20-30 kms. an hour, looking out for the edge of the road and hoping that we would not roll over the edge of the 'high' road into the fields below.

We hunted for food for dinner, but rural Bihar had gone to bed and did not co-operate with us. The line-hotels (dhabas) were far apart, and we were desperate for food by the end. Finally we found a line-hotel, albeit a small one, who doled out hot-hot rotis with the ever-present aloo-gobi. Tummies full, we felt we could face anything.

We reached Saharsa town. The kosi-nivas, the best hotel in town was full, so we went looking for accomodation. The Embassy sounded good and we decided to give it a shot, but we shot out at full speed after confronting its dingy and shady interior with Urinals and rooms side by side and walls painted and splattered with pan-pichkaris ... ! We finally managed to convince Kosi-Nivas to give us accommodation. It was heaven after the Embassy. And not to forget the HOT water that was available for a bath !! We slept through the rambunctious celebrations of a wedding behind the walls and got up in the morning, once more ready to face whatever the day held.

Bihar !

My first memory of Bihar will always be of fog. I woke up early morning, and looked out of the window of the train, and looked at a ghostly landscape, shrouded in fog. People, stations, poles, signals, trees, ponds, seemed to appear from nowhere - stayed in sight for a few moments and disappeared once again into nowhere.Patna, bustled with life and activity. Granite platforms, jazzy columns, glass and chrome in places, tried to give an impression of progress and modernity. Many groups of policemen all around made one feel at once safer and insecure. Insecure as one wondered 'why so many policemen ?' and safer as one thought 'well, at least we are protected'.The chaos outside the station is indescribable - autos, cycle rickshaws, cars, handcarts, ramshackle buses, and a mass of people vied with one another for space on the narrow roads. The autos were banged up, with cracked and broken windshields .. left like that ... as if there was no point in repairing it !

I settled into the guest house, and the day was spent waiting for Suneet, whose train was almost 10 hours late due to fog !!