Sudder Street, Calcutta
Not hot hot but not cool at all, except for in the evening, which is sweater vest material.
My last cafe check-in was ACed in Bangkok, now up a narrow spiral staircase in what really doesn't qualify as a second floor on Sudder Street. Wedged in to my left is a mother daughter team cruising "Hindi matrimonials" (.com? .org?) for a suitable boy. Mom likes the PhD and income on that one, daughter protests "oh but mama, look at his face..." How modern.
They've been replaced by a Japanese lady who's accessing email and staying in touch with her world no problem. And to my right an Aussie woman also staying at the Fairlawn who's also headed to Darjeeling tomorrow night. So there's the cast. The fellow on the end of our row is asking the cafe owner for how to book train tickets to Darjeeling (there's no such station) but we're not volunteering info - there's just so much altruism a traveler can share, another person to add to lunches and the evening beer.
Arrived last night.
Another complete re-immersion in India, never smooth but this time a little easier coming into a city I knew, even if that city is the unknowable, and at times unthinkable, Calcutta.
Longer than had hoped getting out of airport in order to get rupees for the pre-paid cab counter. Smoothly through customs (was nervous with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red over the 2 bottle limit) I run bang into a group of Japanese boys. Showing no group think at all, each individually changed yen to rupees with the Thomas Cooke money changer. No ATM, no other changers and this meticulous man prepared carbons for each hand writ receipt. and recounted rupees in the rupee counting machine before handing them over for a signature. The Japanese seemed neither surprised nor fussed about the wait, never saw it as a reason to pool funds, so I stayed calm as well and reorganized my wallet: stowed the Thai baht, hid dollars in handy inner vest pockets I've discovered (first trip with the vest) and checked out my visa stamps.
Then out the door, safety zone of the international airport at you're back and you're in India. Not full frontal India which was odd. It had already cooled for the evening so not the dust and heat punch of Bombay arrivals; but the clamor for my pre-paid taxi chit, and the cluster that formed around me to give opinions on where I was going, was enough to confirm arrival. The ride in sealed it though Calcutta seemed tidier than I remembered. Until full re-immersion in the market this morning, was ready to up my previous star rating for the city.
Almost too easy landing at the Fairlawn, settling into my airless, windowless but rambling and towering ground floor room - behind a curtain off the main dining room. The ones on either side also inhabited by single women - would feel vulnerable if it weren't the Fairlawn. More likely our orderly assembly more for observation than anything seedy. Wouldn't be so bad being off a dining room in most hotels, but the Fairlawn encourages full board for guests which means 4 meals (afternoon tea) is served just outside my door. Hard to feel private, or watch the BBC at any audible level, when breakfast conversation is a thin door away.
Emerged to have a beer in the central green sitting area and catch up with diary, record first India/Calcutta/Fairlawn impressions - but soon interrupted by an elderly British couple who plonked down beside me to have a "bit of air" before sleep. They'd been touring Orissa for three weeks, he's on a British government supported program called Heroes Return which - 60 years since the war's end - returns British servicemen, even widows, to wherever it is they served. All flights and accommodations paid for - returnees responsible for meals and must agree to talk to UK school children about their experiences and travels.
They were having a ball - he 80, she I assume about the same - and absolutely buoyant travelers, keen on India, filling in one another's stories of the bellboy who hovered for three days, the lovely train ride though they'd skipped the curry, the temples they'd enjoyed. Their one sadness was having lost the roll of film (to exposure) on which they'd recorded graves of some of his comrades - they'd were only able to salvage two shots.
Fairlawn's website boasted of updates and modernizations throughout the hotel. Saw no evidence but comforting for its sameness of clutter, clipped out portraits of Charles and the Queen, Di with Prince Henry, Di with Princess Margaret (?) and two beefeater Palace guards side by side - all pasted onto red board and framed. Also lots of plastic plants and hanging vines hung with peaches, pears and garlands of grapes round the entry. Most of the downstairs painted a glossy kelly green, the upstairs in browns. Stairwell hung thick with signed photos of Merchant and Ivory, autographed posters of City of Joy and shots of the hotel's owners arm in arm with various levels of royal person. The family seems to hold out hope that if they can just keep the Fairlawn as it is, serve meals on time and make friends of each guest, then history might just be stopped for a few decades more. Emerging from the polka-dotted stucco walls of the hotel, out from under the man made greenery, into the tumult of Sudder Street is a disconnect. Surely there was a time when you could step out and into a carriage, swing round to the Governor's House rather than - uninvited - hoofing it around the corner to wait in line for the museum.
This was a ramble, now must go for a nap but send my love out to everyone still reading.
C, from C, India.
My last cafe check-in was ACed in Bangkok, now up a narrow spiral staircase in what really doesn't qualify as a second floor on Sudder Street. Wedged in to my left is a mother daughter team cruising "Hindi matrimonials" (.com? .org?) for a suitable boy. Mom likes the PhD and income on that one, daughter protests "oh but mama, look at his face..." How modern.
They've been replaced by a Japanese lady who's accessing email and staying in touch with her world no problem. And to my right an Aussie woman also staying at the Fairlawn who's also headed to Darjeeling tomorrow night. So there's the cast. The fellow on the end of our row is asking the cafe owner for how to book train tickets to Darjeeling (there's no such station) but we're not volunteering info - there's just so much altruism a traveler can share, another person to add to lunches and the evening beer.
Arrived last night.
Another complete re-immersion in India, never smooth but this time a little easier coming into a city I knew, even if that city is the unknowable, and at times unthinkable, Calcutta.
Longer than had hoped getting out of airport in order to get rupees for the pre-paid cab counter. Smoothly through customs (was nervous with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red over the 2 bottle limit) I run bang into a group of Japanese boys. Showing no group think at all, each individually changed yen to rupees with the Thomas Cooke money changer. No ATM, no other changers and this meticulous man prepared carbons for each hand writ receipt. and recounted rupees in the rupee counting machine before handing them over for a signature. The Japanese seemed neither surprised nor fussed about the wait, never saw it as a reason to pool funds, so I stayed calm as well and reorganized my wallet: stowed the Thai baht, hid dollars in handy inner vest pockets I've discovered (first trip with the vest) and checked out my visa stamps.
Then out the door, safety zone of the international airport at you're back and you're in India. Not full frontal India which was odd. It had already cooled for the evening so not the dust and heat punch of Bombay arrivals; but the clamor for my pre-paid taxi chit, and the cluster that formed around me to give opinions on where I was going, was enough to confirm arrival. The ride in sealed it though Calcutta seemed tidier than I remembered. Until full re-immersion in the market this morning, was ready to up my previous star rating for the city.
Almost too easy landing at the Fairlawn, settling into my airless, windowless but rambling and towering ground floor room - behind a curtain off the main dining room. The ones on either side also inhabited by single women - would feel vulnerable if it weren't the Fairlawn. More likely our orderly assembly more for observation than anything seedy. Wouldn't be so bad being off a dining room in most hotels, but the Fairlawn encourages full board for guests which means 4 meals (afternoon tea) is served just outside my door. Hard to feel private, or watch the BBC at any audible level, when breakfast conversation is a thin door away.
Emerged to have a beer in the central green sitting area and catch up with diary, record first India/Calcutta/Fairlawn impressions - but soon interrupted by an elderly British couple who plonked down beside me to have a "bit of air" before sleep. They'd been touring Orissa for three weeks, he's on a British government supported program called Heroes Return which - 60 years since the war's end - returns British servicemen, even widows, to wherever it is they served. All flights and accommodations paid for - returnees responsible for meals and must agree to talk to UK school children about their experiences and travels.
They were having a ball - he 80, she I assume about the same - and absolutely buoyant travelers, keen on India, filling in one another's stories of the bellboy who hovered for three days, the lovely train ride though they'd skipped the curry, the temples they'd enjoyed. Their one sadness was having lost the roll of film (to exposure) on which they'd recorded graves of some of his comrades - they'd were only able to salvage two shots.
Fairlawn's website boasted of updates and modernizations throughout the hotel. Saw no evidence but comforting for its sameness of clutter, clipped out portraits of Charles and the Queen, Di with Prince Henry, Di with Princess Margaret (?) and two beefeater Palace guards side by side - all pasted onto red board and framed. Also lots of plastic plants and hanging vines hung with peaches, pears and garlands of grapes round the entry. Most of the downstairs painted a glossy kelly green, the upstairs in browns. Stairwell hung thick with signed photos of Merchant and Ivory, autographed posters of City of Joy and shots of the hotel's owners arm in arm with various levels of royal person. The family seems to hold out hope that if they can just keep the Fairlawn as it is, serve meals on time and make friends of each guest, then history might just be stopped for a few decades more. Emerging from the polka-dotted stucco walls of the hotel, out from under the man made greenery, into the tumult of Sudder Street is a disconnect. Surely there was a time when you could step out and into a carriage, swing round to the Governor's House rather than - uninvited - hoofing it around the corner to wait in line for the museum.
This was a ramble, now must go for a nap but send my love out to everyone still reading.
C, from C, India.
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