The Beginning..

Kolkata was always a city I hated to love after chennai.its been close to 6 & half yrs since I was here & in these years I can very well say that this place is giving the other capitals a run for their money.

Its 3 days since I landed.women here can teach a thing or two to the delhites on fashion.the dress code in all girls school's seem to be strictly above the knee skirts & is followed with such an admirable & sincere discipline.capris to bright skirts to spaghetti tops to the ever wonderful Bengali saree,the latest in fashion is here.the guys seem to be like those in the rest of the country,anyway there isn't much choice left for them.but I wonder why I saw rani mukherjee only on one advertisement though.

i visited a pub called the 'shisha' in camac street last night.an upmarket 'hooka pub' promoted by two gentlemen who have a textile business,supported by sanjeev kapoor.must try the long island ice tea,is a treat,was a lot stronger than usual,thts the way it should be anyway.the dry martini wasn't up to the mark.the manager enlightened me on the club scenario in kolkata.I was told that kolkata stays awake pretty late in the nite(4-6am).kudos to the communists!

be warned but,its impossible to get in wearing casuals & without shoes before 9.30pm & being single post that.I was neither anyway,guess it was just my face value then??

Never knew that traveling alone can be such fun.just looking & watching all these people is such an amazing job.wish I could get paid for it.one thing amazes me,everyone seems to be dressed in their bests always,it quite makes one feel pedestrian.

Today Im sitting in a place called 'burp' in the forum on Elgin's road,kolkata's version of bangalore's forum.the crowd here is predominantly 16-22 ish,school & college going people.a mixture of marwadi,Bengali & ppl from th north east.you must try the lemon tea in 'gotta get energy',was the best iv had in ages.this place has thai,south indian,pitza u name it.even has an open air dining area. The place has an inox,one of the few cities to boast of one.theater 4 had the casino royale,at 60 - 230 bucks a ticket,the price is a bit steep.ambiance is pretty good.more about the movie later.

The second most orthodox city after brahminic chennai has surely shunned its image & is moving fast towards being outwardly cosmopolitian.but in return it seems to be losing on the unique Bengali charachter,I could hardly hear ppl speaking bengali.any person can pass of with basic Hindi.filled with biharis & marwadis the place is fastly losing its old world charm to Tommy hilfigers & malls. i can bet that delhi,mumbai & bangalore have a lot of catching up to do,if they have already not lost the race.but chennai still happens to be the best place to live in,just coz i was born there,if not,shonar bangla wins hands down on all counts.