Began the new day as we’d ended the old, at the Blue Sky. Then, after a leisurely breakfast, decided to spend the rest of the morning in the Indian Museum, looking at those sections that we’d missed before. An interesting enough time, but hardly stunning. We caught the tram to BBD Bag to collect our Darjeeling permits in the afternoon – the same procedure as before. That done, we undertook our own little sight-seeing tour, walking first to the small church of St Johns – locked up, unfortunately – out past the High Court, + along by the river. We had no view of the river itself for ages, as we were cut off from it by high warehouse walls, but close to Howrah Bridge we struck gold, when we found both an approach to the river + a Hindu festival going on there. Large nos of people were making their way down to the river to bathe, + various strange-looking idols, usually battered + missing a limb or 2 because of much use, were being carried in for a ritual bathing too. Most of the human bathers were women, walking down the steps into the water fully clothed, then changing afterwards, as chastely as possible. We took a few photos, tho’ were told not to do so of the bathers themselves. There seemed to be no prohibition of looking however – a lot of people besides ourselves were spectators + not participators. Eventually the interest of the scene palled, + we left, to climb up onto Howrah Bridge itself. The spectacle of the traffic on the bridge was not as remarkable as we’d been led to believe, but it was pleasant enough to stand there for a while + watch the sun sink over the Hooghly.
Caught a tram back to Sudder St – easily Calcutta’s most pleasant form of transport – + in the evening went out once more to the Fairlawn. The meal itself was once again wonderful – roast pork this time – but I didn’t enjoy it so much. First of all, I made too much of a pig of myself, helping myself to more than I could comfortably eat. Secondly, the company at our table was utterly appalling, as bad as in the most stereotyped of situation comedies, There was a young Australian woman + her 8 year old daughter, namedropping all the travellers’ haunts in SE Asia in the most appalling way (+ helping herself to even more food than I would have dared to take.) And a Northern English couple in their late 30s, oohing + aahing + saying how lovely it all was. They can only have been aware of my ill-concealed disdain.
Luckily, there was a little grass back at the roof garden to finish off the evening in a more relaxed vein. After last night, I had vowed to lay off it, but I have all the will-power of a plastic duck.
Apologies for the photos, which are of poor condition, especially when the subject matter was of great interest.
