A sticky situation in Kolkata

The Victoria Memorial
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Following the Ganges river downstream, we jumped on yet another overnight train and arrived in Kolkata with 6 hours to kill before our flight to Bangalore.

Originally a sleepy backwater town, Kolkata was chosen for British settlement in the mid-1600's, purchased by the British East India Company, and quickly became an Indian version of London with wide shady avenues and grand gardens.  Later, in 1757, the city became British India's first official capital (moved to New Delhi in the early 1900s).

The dome of the Kali temple
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The partitioning of East Bengal (Bangladesh) in the early 1900s was particularily devistating to Kolkata's economy, with an influx of four million Hindu refuges escaping the new Muslim state.  These refuges, literally dying on the streets, are what triggered the West's image of Kolkata as a city in extreme poverty.  Another wave of refuges in the 1970s from the split of India-Pakistan did not help the situation.  This is where Mother Teresa worked, horrified by the poverty, she opened the city's first free shelter to refuges.

Today, India's second largest city is considered the intellectual and cultural capital of the country.  Unfortunately, with only 6 hours to explore, we did not have a chance to see or feel much of the city.  Our first stop was to the most famous builiding, Victoria Memorial -- built for the colonial queen to celebrate the Diamond jubilee.

We next went to the Kalighat's Kali temple, Kolkata's holiest spot, and the perhaps the source of the city's name (Kalighat).  Legend has it that this is the spot where Kali's toe fell after Vishnu dismembered her (already charred) corpse.

We finished our sightseeing with a lunch of Bengali food -- alot sweeter then other Indian food.  Heading to the airport, we took Kolkata's metro to the last stop and caught a taxi to the airport.  No sooner had we negotiated a price, shut the doors, and pulled ahead 20 feet under an overpass, did we run into our first real problem in India.  Stuck under the overpass in traffic, three young men approached our car with large battons and demanded that we must exit the car.  When questioned, they said these were "personal rules" (while continuing palming the batton), and although other cars were let through, ours was not.  We played dumb, and kept saying we would not leave the car, that we had to go....the driver meanwhile looked scared and confused.  After five minutes of this stand off, the driver finally pulled away.  We got to the airport in time and caught a flight to Bangalore.