Fun in Kolkata

I’ve already told you a bit about the more program-oriented elements of my stay in India—the host family stay, St. Xavier’s College, and service at the Loreto Day School.  But what do my friends and I do for entertainment?  Here are a few things we have been up to lately:

Shopping: Of course, we love shopping, especially as we grow new wardrobes more suitable for the warm weather and Indian culture than our Minnesota wardrobes.  At New Market—ironically, New Market is the oldest market in Kolkata—or Gariahat Market, we can find pretty much everything for what we consider reasonable prices.  But we risk paying far too much for low quality items, as sellers immediately recognize us as foreigners.  When we want to avoid this hazard with the knowledge by paying higher prices for high quality items, we frequent South City Mall.  This five-story mall also makes a fantastic hang-out spot when we just want to get out of the house.

Eating Out: This is a more challenging activity due to its expensive nature, but we enjoy eating out, especially with our new friends from college.  Lunchtime favorites include chicken egg rolls (a very different food from what Americans think of as egg rolls) and veg-cheese grilled sandwiches, although I must admit to also trying food at a McDonalds very unlike its American counterpart.  We have also visited a fantastic Chinese restaurant, a delicious Italian restaurant, and more.  Just remember: even non-Indian foods have a strong Indian influence such that they are quite different from what we are accustomed to.  The spaghetti you ordered may just be extremely spicy!

Special Events: We have been to three special, once-a-year events.  Xavotsav in January was a three-day arts festival at St. Xavier’s.  All colleges here have a festival of this sort, but St. Xavier’s has the largest in Kolkata, if not the largest in India.  With a variety of music and dance competitions for college students from around India, Xavotsav was quite the experience!  Then, the beginning of February brought the Kolkata Book Fair, the largest public book fair in the world.  We went two days, looking at books in stands for publishers and distributers alike.  I may just have bought out the Penguin Publishers stand if it hadn’t been for the fact that anything I buy needs to get back to Minnesota one way or another!  Finally, last weekend was the weekend of Sufi Sutra, a music festival during which musicians from around the world played Indian classical music.  We went on Sunday evening and enjoyed ourselves despite the resulting plethora of mosquito bites.

Yesterday brought a variety of fun.  The group from CSB/SJU took a boat ride on the Hooghly River.  We saw a different view of the city and stopped at the Sri Ramakrishna Temple, a collection of Hindu temples.  Then, Bekkah and I visited a new friend from St. Xavier’s.  We ate aloo (potato) bharatas (a type of flatbread) before going for a walk and shopping at a mall called Hiland Park.  I laughed at the mall’s name, but this smaller mall made for a great time.

Of course, this is just a snippet of the various activities my friends and I have been up to.  We have been quite busy, which is just fine in my book!