India: Kolkata

After a quick two-hour flight, we landed in Kolkata. Welcomed by warm evening air, we waited for a few minutes till our chauffeurs picked us up. We got to ride with Saumya’s dad though, who said that driving in Britain is boring-hahahaha. No, actually, I always felt safe riding the car in India, realizing that I just have to trust that the driver knows exactly what to do and how close he can get to other cars/bikers/cows/buses.

It was around midnight when we finally got to my sister’s new house. Wow! We were received like royalty! Such a special treatment for special guests.

I know my sister was simply exhausted by the third day of festivities.

The house was decorated with flower petals and drawings on every floor of the house. It smelled so good!

For the next two days in Kolkata, we just basically spent time with family. Oh yes, we did have a wedding reception, but that’s a story for another blog.

We slept in late, stayed up late (late as in kids going to bed at midnight!!!!). Yeah! We were cool parents like that-haha. One day Mark slept till 1 pm because of the nights prior that he was not getting enough sleep. But they were all behaving all right, and just LOVING being with our Indian family.

This is Mokshada, Ashok and Mark. Just hanging out in their family room.

Did I mention my sister lives in a house where she has people cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and ironing for her? Yep. Her life is sweeeeeeeeeeeet! I loved having someone taking care of choosing what to cook for dinner…And their cook is fabulous! Fabulous! I loved pretty much ALL their food. I had my favorites, of course. I could eat a dozen of Jalebis. And I won’t deny the fact that I did. They are sweet and yummy, and probably horrible for you. I dream of having them again someday….

My other favorite thing was aalu paratha. Mashed potato pancakes basically. Oh my….I could eat them as a snack every day. Kids loved these too.

So, as I mentioned before, one big event of our Kolkata days was the wedding reception for friends who could not travel all the way to Agra. During that reception, Ashok was telling the boys the whole time that once the reception is over, he would take them to a candy shop. So that kept them going and interested for hours. Finally, at around 5 pm (actually, I don’t even remember what time it was as our days were kind of backwards anyway), we were finished with the reception, so we drove to the mall where we found a candy shop.

Oh my goodness! Ashok told them they could pick out whatever they wanted…and our kids went crazy! I am not sure if it is such a great idea after all to limit their candy in our regular days as they are nuts with sweets when they see them. They all picked all sorts of candy and chocolates…and we let them, because how often do you get to go buy sweets at a candy shop in India?

Here is Mark with his happy grin.

And here is Robert with his, “I cannot believe that I am letting my kids have all that candy! Hope they brush well tonight…”. Oh, and he is holding a present from Ashok to us—a huge package of cookies-haha.

Believe me, that night kids were hopping till after midnight-haha. But we didn’t care as they were having such a great time hanging out with Lyena and Saumya.

Oh, that’s also the evening when Ashok, my mom, Robert and I got a massage! That was the first time Robert had a Thai massage. You’ll have to ask him about his experience though-hehehe. And don’t forget to mention how he was so relaxed after that massage that he completely forgot our fancy camera (with hundreds of pictures!) AND his wallet in its case at the salon…and miraculously one of the workers ran after him and gave it back to Robert, when he was already in the middle of the mall. It could have been a disaster.

Another highlight of our stay in Kolkata was when Saumya took us to the famous world’s biggest cricket stadium Eden Garden!

So it turns out that Saumya used to play cricket on a semi-professional level back when he was in his college years, but he had to quite because of a serious injury. I mean, he was a famous cricket player around here! He was even part of the reality show about cricket. It’s crazy! We watched part of the show, the part where he gets voted out because he was too good (seriously) and it was just so fun to see that. Kids loved it!

Since Alex and Katya know all about cricket from their school, they thought that was really neat to see a stadium where this game is played. Apparently, Alex knows some ultra cool moves too.

Mark doesn’t, but we made up some.

This is a picture with Saumya’s friend, Partha Sarathi Bhattacharya, who is a famous professional cricket player in India. He is so famous, that my blogging program won’t even let me un-underline his name.

Alex was just enchanted with the whole idea of Saumya being a famous cricket player. I think the whole school here in Brampton knows that his uncle used to play cricket in India. He wanted to take a picture with JUST Saumya.

And here is a beautiful couple for you.

We tried to take a few pictures on our drive from the house to the stadium. Next time we visit, we’ll have to go to Victoria Memorial Hall. It’s amazing, from what I hear.

This is one of the carriages identical to the ones that my sister and Saumya rode right on the night he proposed to her.

The New Town in Kolkata. Lots of high rising buildings and too much empty real estate.

And just a snapshot of streets on the other side.

Oh yes, I cannot forget to mention one of our kids’ favorite parts of Kolkata visit—a 7D movie at the mall!! Yeah…you cannot go wrong with a movie. This was a very “interesting” feature-haha. One episode was something about dinosaurs and the second one was about a roller coaster ride. Somehow it was 7-dimensional, probably because you got sprayed on with some water plus made to feel like you have bugs crawling under your feet. Mark did just fine, by the way (but a trip to the candy shop was still his #1 activity in Kolkata).

We truly wish we had more time with my sister and our newly acquired Indian family. We felt so comfortable and relaxed in their home. It was probably the most vacation-like days out of the whole trip. I am glad we added those two days to our India visit, but we simply must go back. At the end, Saumya’s mom reminded us that famous Indian slogan is “Guest is god”. We were treated with so much welcome and care that of course we’ll want to go back (as long as I get my orange sweet thingies in unlimited quantities).