Streets of Calcutta

The last weekend was spent in Calcutta with a friend from the FMS program who is working at really cool health startup called iKure. While I wouldn’t recommend Calcutta to be the first place one visits in India – it’s a little intense – it’s definitely a very interesting place to see. Once the capital of India, (during British rule) it has since suffered greatly from poverty, overcrowding, and poor infrastructure. That being said, it’s a city that is full of culture and you can truly feel the history as you walk the streets. Everything in the city is old, from it’s cabs to the deteriorating colonial style buildings. It’s said that all great cities fall to ruin and to that, Calcutta is no exception. Except the people didn’t seem to notice. They go about their day, living, working, and celebrating in their crumbling city.

As for the photos, the men working on the streets dominated my lens time this trip. They seem to be able to carry, push, or pull anything; I couldn’t stop watching. I swear I did touristy things, all the pictures just seem so stale comparatively.

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For this post’s observational “Fact” about India, we’re going to talk about Chinese food. First of all, it’s everywhere. Which shouldn’t have surprised me but it did. What’s interesting is that it’s similar to American style Chinese food. Lots of chow meins, fried rice and and so on; all being pretty delicious. Also, every Chinese restaurant I’ve been to or seen is Indian owned/ran. I hadn’t actually seen a Chinese person in India until I went to Calcutta. We woke up on Sunday morning at 5am to go to a Chinese market in a 250 year old Chinatown, that we weren’t sure even existed. After some serious wandering (through some pretty unpleasant streets to be honest) we magically found it! There were about 12 Chinese people in total (Wikipedia tells me there are 2,000 living in the area) but they were selling all the wonderful snacks, including the biggest bao I’ve ever seen. Wish I got a picture of them, but this one will give you an idea of the market.