Not so long ago, I started to tell you about my trip to the mysterious India. The second city on our way was Calcutta. People call it "The city of joy". And they are definitely right. Calcutta looks very different than Delhi. The reason for that its colonialist past. As you know, the city was founded by the British, and this is evident throughout. Everywhere there are beautiful houses in European style, and each of them deserves to be immortalized in a photo. Wide avenues with sidewalks are laid in the center. Absolutely fabulous appear Christian churches rising above the palm trees here and there. Oh yes, madly many trees, parks and gardens. So Calcutta became a real surprise for us. And you know what is the most exciting? Victorian atmosphere of the city. At the heart of it is the Victoria Memorial - a charming building with a monument to Queen Victoria, who imperiously looks at you from the top down. At the same time, the Indian way of life contributed to the appearance of the city. Many rickshaws, some kind of cables everywhere, people, merchants, vegetable stalls, tents, English yellow cabs and old buildings - all this creates an atmosphere of post apocalyptic London. It's fantastic!
(I called myself a little Victorian ghost, and passers-by - a doll)
(I promise I will never do so again!)
Unfortunately we didn't have so much time. What I'm really sorry, it's that we don't have time to explore the cult of the great and terrible Hindu goddess Kali, after whom the city is named. We have been in only one temple dedicated to her, and it's very extraordinary place. It's imbued with incredible energy. Kali is the only goddess who in the peaceful Hinduism receives bloody sacrifices... So this place is creepy and sacred and causes trembling.
(Ripon street, 82 - guest house for the Europeans, where Mircea Eliade lived)
(Boot cleaner on the opposite side of the street)
Yet another reason to visit Kolkata - my favorite writer Mircea Eliade. The fact that Romanian scholar of religion had spent a few years before the outbreak of the World War II here. I wanted to go to the same places that he did, as I imagined Calcutta from his books. Of course, Kolkata nowdays is not at all as he described it, however for me it was a kind of pilgrimage.
