CALCUTTA September 14th – 24th

Calcutta- The Peerless and Chowringee

By Metro and Taxi

Excursions on foot

Dolna Day School

 

After the understandable chaos of the rebuilding at Gauhati and Bagdogra airports, the terminal at Calcutta was delightfully spacious and clean, almost, dare one say it, quiet. And this calm, unfussy entry to the first British capital of India was reflected in the persona of the gentleman who was meeting us. Mr. Jyotishka Dasgupta smiled as he recognised us and greeted us formally. Dressed in dark trousers and crisp white shirt, he looked very inch the school administrator I understood him to be. In the customary middle-class Indian way, he was able totally to ignore the pathetic beggar woman cradling a small child as she followed us into the car park, standing, hand out, as we packed the luggage into Mr. Dasgupta's Maruti Esteem and then tapping slowly on the side window. Dasgupta's quiet, somewhat refined and distant manner contrasted sharply with that of Mani in Darjeeling. We chatted about the one subject that drew us together, Trinity College London and its work, and he spoke at some length about promoting Trinity but how that would cost money and asking if it would be available. It is always understandable, when reps overseas meet examiners, that they should presume that he or she is able to act for the management in absentia, discussing organizational matters or policy. I listened and made the usual non-committal responses since none of the matters he was discussing were within my remit. I noted what he said, of course, and told him I would include the comments in my tour report.

            Meanwhile, our first impressions of Calcutta were favourable as we drove along straight, well-surfaced roads past lakes with small fishing boats, and open tree-lined spaces. The closer we drove to the centre, however, the buildings naturally became more concentrated and we were soon in the familiar melee of cars, rickshaws, animals, pedestrians, hawkers, and bicycles. As well as buses crammed to the gunwhales, there were trams and (in certain areas only because of the added congestion their speed brings), hand-pulled rickshaws. The Lonely Planet suggests that “Calcutta is not the best introduction to India” because of the denseness of the population, the poverty and the high degree of pollution and “is best visited after you’ve had a chance to get used to some of the countries extremes”. This advice we began to appreciate as we neared our destination in the heart of the city.

            Mr. Dasgupta left us at the Peerless Hotel, on Chowringee Rd., promising that "a little man in a blue suit" would meet me in Reception on Thursday to show me the way to the school where I would be working. He made no mention of  Pat being able to join me on exam days – in fact, during the journey in, he had hardly acknowledged her presence. Realising that this was going to be rather a different experience to Shillong or Darjeeling, we were glad that the following day was to be free so that we had time to adjust to central Calcutta.

            The Peerless was, as Jean Street warned us, rather soul-less. We were not at all happy with the first room we were shown (overlooking some large Edwardian buildings which were now slums) so we asked for one towards the front. This gave us a view into a side street but also a glimpse of the Maidan, the large park that is known as the heart and lungs of Calcutta. Feeling the need to orientate ourselves, we strolled out into the heat and din. In many ways, this part of the city resembles central London. Facing south, for Chowringee Rd. substitute Park Lane. Both are busy dual-carriageways. For the opulence of the Dorchester Hotel, substitute the equally luxurious Oberoi Grand. And, on the other side of the road, Hyde Park is replaced by the Maidan. One obvious difference is that a Trinity examiner and his wife would not be found eating at the Dorchester. Here, later in the week, we found the food at the 5 star Oberoi Grand was excellent but, at £21 including wine, very expensive – for India. For most Cal residents and visitors, the Maidan is an area away from traffic, housing some historic monuments and therefore a place for a stroll and relaxation –  Hyde Park likewise. For all I know, the latter may harbour activities less savoury than mere recreation and open-air hectoring, but it is not generally used, as is the Maidan, as a public toilet or a place to graze a few ponies. Apart from the variety and volume of traffic handled by Chowringee Rd. and Park Lane, the major difference between the two thoroughfares is that one would not expect a flock of sheep to be driven down Park Lane or, as on this our first viewing of Chowringee, a herd of goats. Even if they had kept moving, the disruption to traffic would have been enormous but there were small trees on the central reservation, the leaves of which proved too much a temptation to the goats, who stopped to take lunch as they went their way.

            Just beyond the Oberoi, we found the National Museum of India (entrance fee Rp4 – "Foreigners Rp50") and, as we made our way back to the Peerless, we had to negotiate the (fortunately wide) pavements filled to capacity with stalls offering an extraordinarily wide range of commodities, even by Indian standards. For obvious reasons, we, or rather our pockets, attracted a good deal of attention. "Pair of pants, Grandad!" called out one young hawker. T-shirts were brandished in our faces, toys, watches, calculators, pictures and mirrors. There was the usual plethora of food stalls and, seemingly every few yards, second hand books laid out on a sheet on the floor. Books are big business in Calcutta and the larger book stores, as we later discovered, rivalled Waterstones.

            The roads were crammed with taxis, as in Shillong looking like a hive of bees with all-yellow "country" ones and “city” cabs in yellow with black tops. The buses were literally hanging with people and I wondered how the suspensions took the weight of those extra passengers clinging to the door rails and how these people were not swept off by traffic overtaking on the inside. Despite all the congestion because of goats, rickshaws or people (pedestrians seem to have equal rights with vehicles on the highway, raising the skill of jay-walking to absurd heights), nobody seems to get upset or angry. That is until a bus knocks a jaywalker over. We read many reports in the newspaper of bus drivers and conductors running away from the scene of an accident involving their vehicle, while some reports told of others, not so fleet of foot, being dragged from the bus and given a summary beating by the crowd which would quickly surround the offending vehicle.

            That evening we learnt not to eat in the hotel's  "Cosmopolitan Restaurant" on the first floor. The food was indifferent but, whilst I listened happily over the next few weeks to Indian classical music, the live music of the Indian pop variety that this restaurant boasted, was incredibly dull and loud. The four or five singers, male and female, took turns to sing and I can only presume that their Indian classical training may have resulted in mean tempered tuning which did not fit happily with the equal temperament of the digital keyboard and bass guitar which was supported by a battery of three (mostly Latin-style) percussionists. But what really captured our attention was the manner in which the singers presented themselves whether performing or waiting their turn. They looked as though they were on Death Row, not a smile or a hint of personality amongst them. Perhaps these automatons were singing some very serious songs – most of the tempi were slow – and perhaps we were not cognisant of the style. But we were not inclined to try the restaurant again and ate thereafter in the Coffee Shop.

            The next day saw us taking our life in our hands and crossing the extremely wide junction at the top of Chowringee Road. This was in order to find a Post Office as we no longer had faith in hotel receptionists when it came to posting letters. Our job was not made easier by having to negotiate a large flock of sheep (all with lurid pink marking). We had been offered three different sets of directions (nobody in India wants to say "I'm sorry, I don't know" so they just tell you anything not to lose face) but we eventually found ourselves in a very grubby Post Office. We queued up at a counter where a woman weighed our letters to home. She told us the cost and I waited for the stamps. Eventually, Pat realised that she was directing us back outside to where we should actually buy the stamps. Back on the pavement, I crouched down to a hole the size of a house brick in the wall, level with my chest. Peering inside, I could dimly see a saried woman sitting amongst books, papers, stamps etc. I told her the value of the stamps I needed, at which she filled out a couple of forms and eventually I was asked for money and the stamps were released together with my change. Now to find a post box. After some gesturing from those queuing, we realised that we had to retrace our steps and queue again to the first lady. She seemed rather perturbed that, while waiting in her queue, I had actually stuck the stamps on, as she had to weigh the letters again (to check I had not put two more sheets in while I waited?) and then frank the stamps. She then retained the post, no doubt passing it to the army of people behind her for further scrutiny and form-filling.

            Whilst we were on the far side of Chowringee, we could not help noticing the building we had seen from the room we had declined at the hotel. Chowringee Mansions were obviously nineteenth century apartments modelled on Georgian terraces in London. Handsomely proportioned, with balconies on which, no doubt, British businessmen would have sat with their wives, downing gins, being cooled by the punkah and watching the sun set over the Maidan. On these balconies now, we could see chickens wandering about, several old men leaning over watching the world go by, and a few ragged children running about. The fabric of the mansions was simply rotting away – gutters, cornices, lintels cracked and splintered. A sad sight. One corner of this rotting Edwardiana had been taken over by the Indian Government Industries Emporium, a tourist shop with an amazing range of goods, artefacts and clothes from all over India. It was useful having a preliminary look round this shop, not just because it was air-conditioned, but because we knew we would want to purchase several items in the equivalent shop in Chennai.

            Later in the day, I made further attempts to ring the rep in Kathmandu. The phone in our room had already been changed once because I could not get a line out. Further frustration followed this attempt and I insisted on seeing the Duty Manager. He smiled a lot and apologised. "We think that rats are eating through the cables in the basement – It is most annoying" was his reaction, offering to move us to another room.

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            Armed with the piece of paper with instructions and map on which Mr. Dasgupta had outlined my journey, I waited in the lobby on my first working morning. The "little man in a blue suit" (a safari coat and matching trousers) was half an hour late.  I never discovered his name and he made no attempt to relate to me beyond, in very poor English saying "I late – traffic". He was small, with light brown skin and a greying moustache. Guiding me out of the hotel into the Chowringee Rd., we went down a set of steps which, on our previous excursions, I had not even noticed so blocked were they by hawkers. These steps were, in fact, the entrance to the Esplanade station of the Metro – the Underground. Tickets were bought by my companion and I tried to notice some landmarks, as I knew that the next day I would be on my own. The platforms were quite quiet and not (as I had feared) crammed with life. Just air-conditioned and, despite being only five years old, reminiscent of London's Circle Line circa 1960, the system nevertheless seemed efficient as we entered one of the eight-car trains bound for the southern terminus, Tollygunge. There is one station for every kilometre of its 17km length line and I was intrigued by some of the decorations on the station walls and wished I knew something about the various paintings and poems – I later discovered that some of the latter were by one of Bengal’s literary heroes, Rabidranath Tagore. Metro users the world over appear to have the same self-absorption since nobody on the train seemed to talk and there was the usual impatience on the part of passengers to enter before other passengers could alight. Our journey finished at Kalighat Station and we emerged at the busy Rashbehari Crossing where a taxi was hired. We travelled amidst thick diesel and petrol fumes down Rashbehari Avenue – quite a wide, shop-lined dual-carriageway with a tram track down the central reservation. It was only 8.45 in the morning but it was incredibly hot as I sat with a handkerchief to my mouth and nose, sweating profusely and hoping the journey was not too long.

            I was able to follow Mr. Dasgupta’s map well enough to know that we had to cross the Byon Setu railway bridge after which we cruised down to the casbah and the Dolna Day School. Mr. Dasgupta greeted me as “the blue suit” parted the ocean of children and their parents outside and on the small drive of the school. I was a little late but he did not seem worried and said we would start whenever I was ready. I accepted a drink of tea (hot water and tea bag variety not the sweet chai which would have come if I had not specified my requirements). The grand piano was a German monster whose manufacturers were "makers of pianos to the Kings of Saxony – Leipzig" and had brass inlaid on every edge. I could imagine Mendelssohn playing such a piano. The four ceiling fans were as noisy as they were essential although I had to lay my desk out carefully, siting the various paperweights Mr. Dasgupta had thoughtfully provided. It was in situations like this that I realised why Indian office workers or other desk-bound gentlemen wear long-sleeved shirts. Every time I put my short-sleeved forearm down to write, I found that the papers stuck to my skin. I cursed myself for not remembering this as I had been similarly afflicted in South-East Asia on other examining jaunts. "We have some absentees this morning but I have doctors' notes for all of them", announced Mr.D. "One has typhoid, one malaria and one meningitis" he continued. Typhoid, malaria and meningitis! In one school! I thought of the classmates of these unfortunate souls who would, perhaps, be coming in to talk to me and share with me the keys of the piano. I remembered that we had taken the £10 option of having a meningitis jab – oh good!

            The next day, I managed the journey on my own. If anything, the morning was hotter. We had been spoiled by spending most of our first two weeks at altitude – "in the hills" – and this relentless heat I found extremely tiring. The journey was hard although I had to allow myself a smile when I hailed a taxi outside Kalighat station and said "Take me to the Casbah" – I am old enough to remember that immortal line in Richard Murdoch and Kenneth Horne's Home Service programme Much Binding in the Marsh. On that second day, the Hindu festival of Viswakarma Puja was taking place, a celebration of all things iron and steel and of mechanical engineering. Hence all lorries, buses and taxis were decorated with chains of marigolds plus stalks from palm trees. These were fixed to headlights or across bonnets and my taxi-driver jumped out at each traffic light or other hold-up to adjust his flowers which kept slipping sideways as we sped along – obviously a very neat and tidy man. The festival also involves kite-flying, which explains why, when I finished work and was waiting for a taxi outside the school, men were standing in the middle of Rashbehari Avenue (i.e. on the grass-covered tram tracks) flying kites, oblivious of the traffic either side of them. According to the maitre d' in the Coffee Shop at the Peerless, competitions are held, with Rp50 notes being fixed to the kites and when they hit the ground, there would be a race to pick up the kite and claim the money.

            Work that day had been of very similar standard to day one and that, to put it kindly, was not high. The electronic keyboards were very poor, with, it became obvious, the "teachers" not really having a good grasp of the examination requirements. Greater disappointment came once more with the piano Diploma candidates, neither of whom passed, and, as in Darjeeling, I was left wondering where the next generation of teachers would come from. I was a little more comfortable at my desk as I had taken a small towel with me to put on the table below my forearm to prevent the sweat pouring off me on to the report sheets. But by the time I had taxied my way down to Rashbehari Crossing, been dropped at the wrong entrance to Kalighat station, waited on the platform for the north-bound train (destination Dum Dum, the home of the exploding bullet) and endured the none-too-pleasant crowded carriage, I was more than ready for a shower and a quiet evening. This was hard going.

            Pat, meanwhile, had been having quite a relaxed time: some reading, letter-writing, excursions along the Chowringee Road to take in and collect films, another quick visit to the Emporium, elevenses in the coffee shop plus "domestics" such as laundry sorting and ironing. She had decided that The Peerless was definitely a "businessman's" hotel with very few women sitting around in the lobby or coffee shop or attending the conferences that obviously constituted much of the hotel's business. On each of her trips out of the hotel, Pat was pestered by the same beggar woman with babe in arms – she seemed to be waiting each time, as if just for Pat. We were reminded of the same experience described by James Cameron in An Indian Summer. He tells how the same man in Chowringee

. . . not only every day but four, five times a day he had interposed himself between me and the kerb I had to cross. It was a changeless gesture, wholly predictable – he limped, he crouched, he moaned absently and reached out with his handless stumps . . .; it was always I who had to change my course and swerve aside, so that he could reproach me with his empty wrists for having avoided him, compounding my guilt.

This was the situation we, as must all Western visitors, found difficult to handle. I was able to ignore the beggars more easily than Pat. However much we talked of the uselessness of giving, the act, to Pat, seemed necessary if for no other reason than as a gesture of humanity.

The first time the stranger brushes off a beggar with an oath he has both won and lost. He is judging India by the standards of Europe, or America. (Cameron ibid)

V.S. Naipaul, in An Area of Darkness, describes this as “the Indian withdrawal and denial” –

The poor become faceless. Then all the rest . . . the Western mimicry, might be subjects for gentle satire. But first the background, the obvious, must be ignored.

Ignoring “the obvious” – the three-legged dogs, the “rickshaw pullers as beasts of burden more degrading than degraded”, the mutilated infants on the mothers’ hips, apparent corpses lying on the pavements – Pat particularly found to be not just difficult but impossible especially when walking about on her own.

            The coffee shop in the Peerless was decorated with marigolds and other plants that evening not for Viswakarma but because of a promotion of South Indian food. An ex-pat Madrasi friend of ours in England had insisted that we try the dosas when we reached her birth-place but we decided to test our taste buds on these flat, folded, crispy pancakes while still in West Bengal. Served with three different bowls of dahl, pickles and a creamy porridge ("Very good for the digestion" according to the waiter), they made an interesting, tasty change to our diet.

             Mr. Dasgupta had offered to organize a car for us for the Saturday morning – as with Mani, not wanting us to be cheated if we had initiated the transaction ourselves. When we had a message to say it would come at 12 noon not 11am, we decided on a little shopping and I bought a very comfortable pair of black leather shoes for £20 in a Bata shoe shop near Newmarket and, discovering the Oxford Book Shop on Park St., we were delighted to find in stock White Cargo for Shanta and Mani.

            By the time the car arrived, it was pouring with rain but we set out on a route I had devised and which I managed to impart to the none-too-personable driver. To provide privacy for tourists and, I suspect, to discourage beggars at traffic lights from tapping on the windows, the car had tinted glass. The effect of this plus, the misting up because of the rain, meant that our view of the buildings in the vicinity of Dalhousie Square was limited. This area was named after the Marquess of Dalhousie, Governor General for eight years until his retirement in 1856. It is also known as BBD Bagh, and was the powerhouse of Calcutta when the city was the administrative centre of British India. The enormous red-brick edifice of the Writers’ Building dominates one side of the square – at the time of its construction in 1880, clerical workers were known as writers. However, our first port of call was the remarkable rotunda that is the General Post Office building – “…without doubt the mother of all post offices.”[1] We had to paddle around in puddles formed in the pot holed road to reach the door but, once inside, we gazed up into the rather dark ceiling of the cupola, now the home to various pigeons and other birds. The whole building had the rather decrepit look we were getting used to in Raj period buildings but its sheer scale was impressive. “Built in 1868 when mid-Victorian confidence was at its highest… modelled on Greece and Rome, and with a scale and self-importance to matched either vanished imperium.”[2]  At ground level, the normal business of a large post office was to be found with various busy and quite orderly counters and booths. It seemed that there were an extraordinary number of people just milling around not actually queuing – perhaps they were sheltering from what was by now quite a downpour. Pat queued for stamps and I, knowing how sensitive the Indian authorities could be about photos being taken of government premises, looked round seeking permission from someone in authority. Again, as with the directions on the previous day, several people sent me quite confidently hither and thither – pillar to post, in fact – until I was faced with a gentleman at a counter whose plaque read "Guide". "No problem" he said and waved me away. After trying one two shots of the pillars and up towards the ceiling, the guide called me over and asked to have his picture taken with Pat and some of his colleagues. By now, an interested group of onlookers had gathered and one particularly chatty individual, discovering that we lived in Yorkshire cried "Ah, Geoffrey Boycott!" This set off some lively conversation about cricket and the state of the Indian and English game. It has to be said that Boycott is well known in India not so much for his former prowess as a leading English test batsman but because, since his fall from grace and loss of position with the BBC, he has created a role for himself as principal cricket commentator with ESPN, a branch of Sky Sports beamed from Singapore to the whole of South Asia. Having watched several one day games as well as Tests during our tour, I can confirm that Boycott has been able to modulate his extremely boring Yorkshire voice and developed into a very fine broadcaster.

            Before we left to find our taxi, the guide shook our hands vigorously, ensured that we had his name and the correct postal address of the building (surely even the Indian postal service could not mis-deliver to the "GPO building") and he extorted the promise that we would send him a copy of the photo. Pat was meticulous about this and similar promises made to Trinity reps, newfound friends, housekeeping staff in hotels, taxi drivers and anyone else who wanted copies of their photos.

            Sheltering from the rain before dashing for the taxi, we found the plaque that told us that the original eighteenth century Fort William had occupied the site. There were brass markers to indicate where the walls had been before the fort had been abandoned in 1757. At that time, the walls ran down to the river. The infamous “Black Hole”, a tiny guardroom, stood at the northeast corner of the present post office although we could find no reference to its exact siting. This, of course, is a sensitive issue since many historians question the “facts” surrounding what happened when the British lost the city to Siraj-ud-daula. Several have suggested that the event was turned into a propaganda exercise, one which lasted through certainly to my school days – the only piece of “Indo-British” history I learned at school concerned the suffocation of men, women and children at the hands of the victorious Indian soldiers.

            Once back with our driver, we continued on a circular (or more accurately, rectangular) route across the Howrah Bridge, along the far side of the Hooley and then back across the Vidyasagar Bridge. Built in 1943, the Howrah is the same size of the Sydney Harbour Bridge but carries probably ten times the amount of traffic, with some 60,000 vehicles crossing it per day. In the rush hour, it can take forty-five minutes to cross but we were able to sail across unimpeded by the leaning buses, the bullock carts and hundreds of thousands of pedestrians. At the northern end of the bridge, we saw the famous railway station of the same name and our driver stopped for me to take photos of the enormously long (sometimes twenty-coach) passenger trains at the platforms. The route along to the next, more recent, bridge took us past some of the worst slums we were to see. "Homes" consisted of sheets of polythene stretched against walls and held in place by bricks and stones. Sheets of corrugated tin, odd pieces of wood or cardboard were variations on this appalling theme. Children and large black pigs were sometimes grubbing about on the same pile of rubbish underneath the concrete pillars of bridges. Leaving these sights behind, we passed through an area of factories and industrial sites with dozens of Tata lorries parked ready for loading. Monkeys were climbing about on some of these vehicles which, in some cases, seemed to double as homes, with the incongruous sight of a line of Persil-white washing stretched between wing mirrors. The Vidyasagar Bridge was built to relieve the pressure on Howrah although it took an incredible 22 years in creation. This was mostly due to worries that any piles driven into the riverbed might cause silting problems and affect currents. Thus, like its earlier cousin, it has a single quarter-mile span – it was completed in 1994. Re-crossing the river therefore, we drove past Eden Gardens by which the test cricket ground is known. Officially the Ranji Stadium, the massive floodlights dominate the skyline at this end of the Maidan. Outside Fort William, to which there was no entry, were some beautifully manicured lawns and gardens. The Fort was built in 1781 and a huge area of jungle was cleared to ensure that cannon-fire was unimpeded, enormous trenches were cut and deep fortifications were all surrounded by a massive wall, providing the impregnability the British East India Company felt was required. At £2 million of British tax-payers money, an incredible amount in the eighteenth century, the fort only provided technical security because it was never tested in conflict. From Fort William to the Millenium Dome, it seems that British governments have delighted in spending fortunes subsidising white, or in this case, red, elephants. All we could see were the walls and the gardens outside – visitors strictly not allowed.

            A long Mall-like avenue led to the Victoria Memorial. By now the rain had eased and so we were able to walk down the pebbled paths, past a lake where pairs of young locals were courting, to the steps up to the magnificent edifice built to rival the Taj Mahal. Its foundation stone was laid in 1906, five years after Queen Victoria's death. We queued patiently for entrance, having been instructed to leave our umbrellas and cameras with a porter. As we did so, we issued a prayer that we would see them again. Pat's hand-held electric fan which was discovered as our bag was searched, caused some frowns – she had to assemble the blade and switch it on to demonstrate that it was not a hand grenade. After parting with our Rp4 entrance fee (no premium for foreigners), we entered the first of a series of impressive marble halls. Basically, the memorial is now an art gallery and museum outlining India's history from the period immediately before the East India Company began its colonization, through its official British India days and on beyond Independence. There were some outstanding portraits of former East India Company officials and their wives and families, Governors and royalty. We were to see names like Cornwallis, Ochterlony, Dalhousie, Hastings, Auckland, Bentinck, Curzon et al in many of the museums we were to visit in other cities – Madras, for example. The fabric of the memorial did not seem to be unduly neglected and I was sorry that photographs could not be taken. The official ones on sale were of poor quality although, remarkably, the process of purchasing a Rp10 set was amazingly simple (even if a hand written receipt had to be processed for our 15p).

            Back outside, the sun was shining on the scene as we re-traced our steps to the entrance gates. Here, there were horses and carriages for hire but, ignoring the calls of the drivers, we found our taxi and moved on to St. Paul's Cathedral. This was in no way a copy of Wren's masterpiece being a simple white building inside and out, with a simple, high, arched roof without pillar supports. Contrast was provided by the dark-brown stained, rush-bottomed seats. The cathedral was built between 1839 and 1847 although, in the year of its golden jubilee, an earthquake sent its steeple crashing to the ground and in the subsequent rebuilding a considerable amount of re-designing took place. We delighted in the Burne-Jones stained glass west window – one of many beautiful pieces of work within the building. A bishop by the name of Cotton (Pat's maiden name) held the see in the mid nineteenth century and we also discovered that St. Paul's and Coventry Cathedrals are Crossed Nail centres – each Friday, simultaneous prayers are offered “for peace, reconciliation, love and friendship”.

            Our route back to the hotel took us past the Planetarium, Nehru's Children's Museum and the Art and Craft College, reminding us that we were, as in Delhi, only scratching the surface of this city. Its importance as the centre of commerce in the early days of the East India Company and its significance for Bengalese literature and poetry had been referred to in the Victoria Memorial. The names of Ram Mohun Roy and Rabidranath Tagore are revered within the city and we realised, not for the last time, that there is so much to learn about so many of the places we were seeing that we would ideally like to study the country for a couple of years and then return with more appreciation of its history.

            For now, the sultry heat had finished us for the day and, apart from a splendid meal of stuffed capsicums, rice and paneer, the evening was couch potato time. We found we had fifty TV channels from which to choose, although since 30% were in Hindi, perhaps thirty-five would be more realistic. The cricket on ESPN was live coverage of the tri-tournament form Toronto – West Indies, Pakistan and India. Having been brought up on the BBC's coverage, I am always upset by the adverts not only at the end of but sometimes during the over if a fast bowler was operating. These were usually for the sponsors, in this case Stag Whisky. One film channel even had "local" adverts running continuously along the bottom of the screen. We were forced to watch Ewen MacGregor as Nick Leeson in Rogue Trader like this. Not having satellite TV at home, we sometimes enjoyed the Discovery Channel as well as Animal Planet. On this totally animal channel, we were able to appreciate the quality of BBC programmes.  Rolf Harris was natural and charmingly at home in Animal Hospital compared to the equivalent programmes from his fellow Australians or, worse still, from the USA.

            Next morning, Sunday, we went up to the 10th floor in the hope of taking pictures over the Maidan and its various monuments. We were in luck because, even though the floor was closed since it was only used for conferences and meetings, the young man from housekeeping, Murari, who had been looking after our room happened to be up there. He took us into the conference room, Akashpot, which he told us meant "on the way to heaven", and we were able to appreciate the full panorama from the large windows. The Victoria Memorial was to our extreme left and the gigantic Howrah Bridge to the right. In between we looked out at Eden Gardens, and at the simple but un-missable 150 foot high slim tower that is the Ochterlony Monument (officially known now as Shahid Minar or Martyr’s Memorial). David Ochterlony was obviously an interesting character. A legendary figure in British India, his main military success was in the war with Nepal in 1815 after which he was responsible for bringing the Gurkha soldiers into the Indian (British) Army. When he held the post of Resident in Delhi, he lived the public life of a British civil servant but, in private, he became a nawab, or prince. He dressed in Indian clothes, smoked his hookah, had a fondness for the nautch (dancing) girls and was known by the common people as Loony Akhtar (Crazy Star). He also used a mogul title, Nasir-un-Daula (Defender of the State) and, according to William Dalrymple, “every evening, all thirteen of his Indian wives used to process around Delhi behind their husband, each on the back of their own elephant”. Such behaviour was not always to the liking of thememsahibs but perhaps there was a sneaking regard for him in Calcutta as it was the British who erected this elegant memorial to him – even if they did wait until 1841, sixteen years after his death.

            Looking immediately below us, we watched the near grid-lock situation which is Calcutta traffic, with the trams snaking into and out of their terminus. Meanwhile, Pat was getting to know the housekeeper Murari Pandit. He travelled 80km to work each day from his Bengal village, getting up at 3am to catch the 4am train, then taking a bus to get him to the Peerless for 7am. His shift finished at 3pm when he would make the return journey, arriving home at 7pm. We expressed amazement at his daily travelling but he explained "There is no work in my village except in the rice fields". His dream was to visit London and to see the River Thames. When he told us that he had a 10-year-old boy and a girl of three, both Pat and I had the same idea. After taking photos of him with two of his colleagues who had joined us at the windows, we invited him down to our room. We had been very concerned about the child’s glass nightlight given to us in Darjeeling and how we could possibly manage to get it home unbroken. As Pat wrapped it up, I carefully and slowly, so as to make it very legible in any security check, wrote a short note to explain that we were giving this as a present to Murari's little girl. I signed and dated it equally carefully. He beamed as only handsome young Indians can and said he was "very grateful".

            At 8am the following day, we were woken by the phone. It was Murari. "Could I come and see you, sir? The security guard would not let me take your present to my daughter. He say that the signature is not true." Poor Murari. I suggested that he should give me an hour or so and then I would see to the matter before we went out. Even though I had anticipated the problem (hence the note), I did not foresee that security would check my name with reception and, not surprisingly, would not relate the carefully scripted name on the note to my usual scrawled "signing-in" signature. The Duty Manager was apologetic but said Murari should have taken the note and the present to him and he would have checked with me personally. "All's well ..."

            Our morning excursion was on foot. From Chowringee Crossing, we made our way down Surendra North Rd., past small shop fronts displaying pictures, nuts, spices, chillies by the ton, sweets and cakes. The housing became more and more crowded and dilapidated and yet, among the squalor, there was always a woman by the pavement washing her stainless steel pots or a man washing himself with a bar of soap under a roadside pump. Pavements were being brushed with small bunches of twigs which would presumable constitute a besom, the sweeper merely brushing round the form of a crippled beggar laid out along the pavement. We were endlessly amazed by the beautifully saried women picking their way so daintily through the streetside rubbish, their immaculately clean pale-blue or pink and white clothes standing out incongruously against the drab and dismal surroundings. Similarly incongruous was the sight of the neat, white-shirted businessmen stepping round the beggars and the heaps of rubbish lying on the pavements.

              Statues to past leaders are features of many Indian streets. We had passed one of Indira Ghandi before turning into the road named after the Indian Nationalist leader, Chandra Bose and noticing his bust on a roadside plinth. During the struggle for Independence, Bose had rather different aspirations to those of Gandhi and Nehru, which led him to support the Indian National Liberation Army and ultimately to seek support from a man he much admired, Adolph Hitler.

            Passing St. James' School (with a large church beside), St. Theresa's (totally grey stonework) and a very austere, functional edifice which turned out to be the Inland Revenue office, we could not help remarking that many of these, a hundred years ago, would have been magnificent. Now, their mouldings, window frames, lintels, porches and other architectural details were crumbling away through neglect and disrepair. Pat's eye was sometimes on smaller matters. She found some puppies lying in a huddle on a pavement, days old; a kitten, perhaps a week old (certainly not weaned) was making pathetic attempts to eat a piece of broken biscuit.

            We were looking for two buildings in particular. The Kalighat Temple, which we knew to be strictly Hindu-only, gave the city its name, Kalikata, just over three hundred years ago. The site is important to Hindu pilgrims because, when the corpse of Shiva’s wife, Kali, was dismembered, one of her fingers fell on this spot. The goddess Kali, therefore, represents all that is dark and evil – each day, goats are slaughtered in this temple to satisfy the blood lust of Kali. It seemed appropriate, therefore, to visit the site of the temple because, only a week or two before we arrived, the name of the city had officially been changed to Kolkata (which is how it is pronounced locally).  Following Bombay (derived from Portuguese) which is now Mumbai, and Madras (Chennai), the West Bengal government had decided it was time, in the words of Information Minister Bhattacharya, that they should "free ourselves from colonial hangover and render justice to history." Since the "founder" of the city in 1690 was an Englishman, Job Charnock of the British East India Company, the comment about historical justice bemuses me.

            The small temple, with its significantly dark entrance, was also a landmark for us to locate the Sisters of Mercy Hospital. This was where a Serbian woman of Albanian parents, who became known as Mother Theresa, carried out her life's mission to the poor and dying of Calcutta. The entrance was down a small alleyway, marked only by the presence of one or two beggars. They showed us the door and, although we had no intention of asking to be taken round to gawp at seriously ill people as if they were tourist exhibits, we found ourselves inside the entrance talking to one of the sisters wearing the distinctive blue and white habit of the Order. I explained that we had come to make a donation, which she accepted rather coldly and in a very business-like manner. She even asked if I wanted a receipt. It occurred to me that if I could not trust a Sister of Mercy in this hospital of all places, then the word trust might just as well disappear from my vocabulary. Pat "rewarded" the beggars outside but they, too, seemed not over-pleased, putting up fingers to indicate some meanness on our part.

            We had begun our walk in hot, bright sunshine, needing the umbrella as a parasol. By now, however, the weather was changing rapidly and we soon found ourselves sheltering from a monsoon downpour. We were huddled under a small tin porch at the side of a baker's shop and the heat through the wall was as welcome as the smell of newly baked bread was pleasant. Everywhere, people were scurrying from the battering rain, dogs were sliding under parked cars or finding sheltered ledges. We watched a small boy as he splashed merrily along the gutter, enjoying the experience immensely. Before long, he was laying full length in a six-inch-deep "river" pretending to swim and squealing with delight. Noticing how quickly the drains filled, I thought of the story I had read which highlighted the fact that Calcutta's sewage system was built in the 1890s when here were three hundred people per acre and had been developed very little to the present day when the same acre is occupied by over four thousand, a total population of twelve million. One particular day in 1986, the rains had filled the streets very quickly and local residents decided to lift the manhole covers in order to let the water drain more quickly. By the end of the day, with the city's transport system totally paralysed and the rain still falling, hundreds of people were forced to wade home in waist high water. It was never known how many hundreds perished by falling straight in to the uncovered holes which they were unable to see in the swirling, muddy water.

            Since this was the end of the monsoon season, we were fortunately not stranded by our bakehouse for more than half an hour and eventually we set off under one umbrella to retrace our steps to the Peerless. On the way, we saw a detachment of the Calcutta Mounted Police. The beautiful Indian-bred horses were obviously well cared for. Each day, the mounted police (there are over a hundred men and almost as many horses) make half a dozen or so sorties around the 25 sq km of the Maidan, a practice which has been going on without a break for one hundred and fifty years. Watching these elegant beasts bounce by, I could imagine how useful they would be when Test Matches are being played at Eden Gardens. On turning into the side street where the entrance of the hotel lay, we found it in an even greater state of car-horn pandemonium than usual. This was because a ragged-uniformed "band" of four or five trumpets and a similar number of clarinets was processing down the centre of the street. The melody line of such groups is doubled all the way down no matter what the instrumentation is – or at least, an approximation of the melody is attempted. There is, therefore, no "harmony" as such and the texture was filled out by drums. In this case, an enormous bass drum had been strapped on the back of a small boy, with the burly drummer marching behind, hitting hell out of the instrument, such that the lad's feet nearly left the ground!

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My work over the next two days followed a similar pattern. The arduous Metro and taxi journeys preceded quite long days of indifferent piano and keyboard examinees plus some much better prepared violinists. The power cuts often robbed me of the comparative comfort of the fans and, on the end of Monday's work  (by which time it was dark), the cuts caught the end of a percussion exam at a time when the drummer was putting his instruments away. Instead of waiting for the emergency generator to cut in (which it often didn't), he continued packing up. When he duly fell over, scattering cymbals and snares across the room, I was minded to rewrite his report, as the effect was much more rhythmic than his sight-reading had been.

            I was, therefore, quite late getting back Monday evening. In fact, neither of us was quite ready when our two very attractive visitors arrived. Gaydelia, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Warjari in Shillong, had rung as arranged during the previous week and, to our surprise and delight, she had brought with her the daughter of Amy Smith, the headmistress of Pinemount School. Sharon Smith seemed a most unlikely name for this beautiful young lady whose poise and carriage would have been welcomed by any aspiring Bollywood actress. Both in their first year at Calcutta University, Gaydelia was working on a BA in Education and was planning to finish it back in Shillong – we got the impression that she was not too happy with life in "Cal". Sharon seemed determined to complete her Political Science degree before studying Law. We took them down to dinner in the Coffee Shop and, once we had realised that the etiquette was for us as hosts to choose the food, we settled down to a very pleasant evening. They were both very friendly and personable although I did not feel I could ask too many questions about their background. I would have liked to have known more about the "Smith" angle (father, grandfather?) especially as, when we were discussing Shillong and the variety of tribes in the North East, Sharon declared proudly "I am Khasi".

            Both Pat and I had a long day on the Tuesday. She had joined me for the Metro experience on this my final day of work, having been invited by Mr. Dasgupta's mother to visit the school. I had met this elderly lady once or twice when she had joined me for lunch (served at my examining table). On arrival, Pat, unlike the examiner, had been asked to remove her shoes – absolutely nobody was allowed on the premises wearing shoes, so my dispensation was indeed an honour. Her first impressions were of a clean, bright, tidy and well-run school as her host swept her through the kindergarten rooms to the school hall. Each day starts with a half hour of "relaxation" and on this day, the twelve- to fourteen-year-olds, sitting cross-legged on the floor, were singing. Led by one of the staff, they performed Strawberry Fair in English (for Pat) and then French and German folk songs in the original language before ending with some Bengali songs. From here, Pat was shown the library with its marble floor that had been "designed by the kindergarten children". The patterns were of boats, houses, stars, the sun and animals, all making an impressive mosaic. As they chatted, Pat discovered that Mrs. Dasgupta was the owner of the Dolna Day School, having founded it in 1970. Her husband had made his money in Insurance and Mrs. D. said that she wanted "to give something back to the community". The co-ed school has a creche and so she has pupils from three-month-old babies to sixteen-year-olds. "Truthfulness and an appreciation of music and dance are good bases for a fruitful life", she suggested. As with all school buildings in India, extension work was evident, with two upper storeys being presently added. Obviously the guiding spirit of the school, Mrs. Dasgupta had a dignified bearing, a Mona-Lisa-like smile and, because she obviously adores them, was wonderful with her charges.

            Pat joined me for lunch – soup, sandwiches, rice, dahl, curd – and then she was whisked off to the hall by Mrs. D. to attend a Thanksgiving Service for the teachers given by the pupils of the upper school. This began with some beautiful Indian classical dancing from a group of colourfully costumed girls, and some hardly-audible guitar solos, the second of which was accompanied on a very tinny piano by a boy who "has only been playing for 10 days". Some readings and folk songs in Bengali followed but the main item was a play, again in Bengali, written and performed by the senior boys. Apparently, the plot concerned "young people and adults getting into the wrong roles", presumably, Pat thought, in "life". It occurred to her, with various bits of scenery being grabbed from off-stage and mikes frequently being adjusted, not to mention long gaps where the cast "dried", that some of them were in the wrong roles in the play. There was good deal of shouting and banging of sticks on the stage and this met with obvious approval from the pupil audience sitting cross-legged on the floor. The play went on for an hour and Pat was very glad of the tea and biscuits brought to her during the performance. At the end, Mrs. Dasgupta had to go on stage to be presented with a splendid basket of flowers, presumably on behalf of the whole staff.

            My day's work had been illuminated by the final candidate. A young man passed his Associate Diploma in Violin and he presumably accounted for the confidence of the previous day's fiddle candidates. This preceded a Teacher's Meeting, which could not get under way until all of the teachers who attended (a dozen or so) had been fed a rissole and very gooey chocolate roll. I did not find it easy to stir up much discussion – Pat said she felt me bouncing of the wall in an effort to get a reaction or questions. Mr. Dasgupta was warm in his vote of thanks, however, and everyone smiled very loudly at this point. It was after 8pm before we began the journey back to Chowringee. Even then, I felt I was still working because, by chance, the young violin teacher appeared on the platform at Kalighat and plied me with questions about the exams and related matters. He had said nothing at the meeting!

            Waiting on the platform, I caught sight of the name Tollygunge on a south-bound train and, after the teacher departed, this turned our thoughts to the next, our final, day in Calcutta. The Tollygunge Club is a Calcutta Institution and part of us felt that we needed to see it. We had read about its forty-four hectares of croquet lawns, golf course, swimming pool, stables etc. We knew that temporary memberships were available, that it was run by an Englishman along the same exclusive lines as when it opened one hundred years ago, and that “Tolly” was now the playground of the city’s “beautiful people”. Did we want to spend a day seeing how the other half lived and played in the days of the Raj?

            To an extent, the shape of the next day was determined by the response I got when I rang Nepal Airlines to confirm our flight to Kathmandu. It had been cancelled! "We informed your travel agent on Sunday, sir", said the courteous airline employee. Anticipating my question, he added "No flight, for operational reasons"(i.e. we do not have to tell you why we cancel a flight). "Next flight Friday”. After putting the phone down and several expletives later, I contemplated the effect of arriving a day late in the Nepalese capital and whether the students would be able to have their exams on the Saturday (would any booked rooms be available?). Not least, I thought of losing one of the two free days we had to spend in Kathmandu.

            After a few phone calls, we were on our way Middleton St. and the Nepal Airline office where a very cooperative assistant discovered for us that there was an Indian Airlines flight to Delhi which linked up with another which would get us to Kathmandu only and hour or so after our original ETA. It meant travelling two sides of a very large triangle but I asked the man to endorse our tickets "Flight Cancelled" and he kindly summoned a driver who took us round to the Indian Airlines office in a large darkened-windowed Mercedes. The assistant here was equally charming especially as she had to tell us that the flight we needed was full. "I can wait-list you at Nos. 45 and 46" she added, helpfully. Seeing my desperation, she said "I'll have a word with the manager" but I stopped her by asking about Business Class. Yes, there were seats and they would only cost an extra £30. Relief!

            As if to cool our slightly fevered brows, the day’s rains began and, now feeling very much at home using the Metro, we made our way to the Oxford Book Shop where we browsed and bought some delightful pen and ink sketches of the city, had some lunch in the Atrium of the rather swish Park Hotel and thence moved on to the National Museum back in Chowringee Road. This was busy and we wondered if most people were merely sheltering from the downpour, as there was a large knot of people just inside the doors under some enormous arches but not very many standing looking at the exhibits. Many of these we found fascinating. There was a large collection of musical instruments, all seemingly related to the sitar or veena on the string side or the chenna (oboe-like) or temple trumpet (various shapes and sizes). Buddhist relics from stupas, a great many statues and carvings from the Gupta and Post-Gupta (6th and 7th centuries) plus pottery from similar periods were displayed around the cavernous exhibition halls. The large dioramas of different Indian tribes and large maps of their whereabouts were helpful and there was a fascinating model of the Parsee Towers of Silence where their dead are left for vultures and other birds of prey to pick clean – the cleverly designed drainage channels for liquid waste during the early stages led from the funeral dais to each corner of the construction into soakaways in the soil. The skeletons of prehistoric animals and the mammal section were impressive in scale although they was very dimly lit and we noticed that a "curator" was more or less following us round switching lights on and off as we moved through the exhibits. There was evidence of a certain amount of decay and neglect but, equally, there seemed ample justification for LP’ claim for the museum to be “probably the best in India and one of the best in Asia”.

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At 5.30 the next morning, the streets were quite empty of traffic. This meant that our taxi driver was able to build up quite a speed, perhaps 25mph, which on these pot-holed surfaces made the journey to the airport quite uncomfortable. The streets, though, were not empty of life as the homeless rose from their pavement beds, washing, cleaning teeth, at the street pumps. Watching beggars and dogs scavenging, as we had done before, from the same piles of rubbish, we tried to summarize our impressions of Calcutta. A few days earlier, the local paper had reprinted a light-hearted article from The Guardian adding the headline "What the Brits think about our name change". Some of the discussion concerned people's perceptions of the city. "For folk with a few rupees, it is stimulating, gorgeous and filled with the most argumentative, fun-filled, cussed, giggling, hospitable people in the world – Bengalis." One of the jokes they tell against themselves was quoted:  "We have plenty of Bannerjees and Chatterjis, but not much energy". Were the singers in the Peerless restaurant Bengalis? Was the driver on Saturday morning Bengali? Or the "little man in a blue suit"?  In a cosmopolitan city, it is quite possible for us to have missed out on these fun-loving people and less than a week is no length of time to judge a city and its people. The German writer Gunter Grass, according to the article, described the people of Calcutta as "white-shirted maggots in a shitpile with Victorian excrescences". Maybe the sights we were now seeing on our final ride through its streets not only matched that description but might be the over-riding impression of Calcutta we would carry away. Perhaps, until we get an opportunity to give the city another chance, we should remember Bengalis like smiling Murari Pandit and the happy youngsters singing away at the Dolna Day School.

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[1] Archie Baron in An Indian Affair

[2] Ibid.