Monday 17th February - D's Day Out

Another Radinja tradition is a trial separation to allow D to go riding on public transport and R to have some peace and quiet. When we wake D's phone says that it is 17°C and foggy. The newspaper at the breakfast table is reporting on how cold the winter has been, with a high number of chilly days reported. These are defined as days when the temperature plummets to +13°C or less. How we laugh.

After breakfast D gathers his kit together and heads out. The sun has burnt off the fog but the locals are still wrapped up in fleeces, sweaters and blankets. Stage one of today's plan is to ride a bit more of the Kolkata Circular Railway. Complete trips round seem to be confounded by an extraordinarily complex timetable. This foiled the possibility of travelling on a Galloping Local, patois for a skip stop fast service.

Instead a trip from Ballygunge to BBD Bag is chosen, stopping a couple of stations south of Sovabazar Ahoritola, leaving part of the circle untravelled. A notion to use one of the ticket dispensing machines has to be abandoned when D realises that he needs some kind of smart card. The queue at the counter is not too bad and Rs 5 soon secures the required ticket. Platform 2 is crowded but the train is not busy when it arrives and a window seat is secured. 

Progress around the suburbs of South Kolkata is steady until we get to the approaches to Majerhat station, where there is a wait for several minutes. We have to wait for a gap in trains so we can move from South to north over six running lines. This line also gives access to the docks. From Majerhat we climb steeply onto a single track viaduct that looks to have been constructed during the 21st century. From here we get a bird's eye view of some of Kolkata's industrial areas.

The line returns to ground level as we pass under the Vidyasagar Setu  and hug the east bank of the Hooghly. The penultimate stop is the halt for Eden Gardens cricket ground. At the terminus D follows everybody else off the platform and across the main road into Fairlie Place. This is home to Indian Railways Foreign Tourist Booking Centre and dozens of street food stalls catering for the offices around. Chai is calling and a chap who is drinking his own product looks like a safe bet. Clay pots seem to be making a comeback big time in Kolkata. Hooray!

It is a pleasant stroll from BBD Bag railway station to the tram stop but when D gets there it is apparent that the Philistines have won here. The tram lines head into the hoardings for a new metro construction site. Time for plan B. A quiet side street is found and an Ola cab summoned. With a minute he appears and we are off down across the Maidan and onto the string of elevated skyways that head out towards Salt Lake. This area, to the east of the city is booming, with high tech businesses and new residential developments everywhere. On Friday the first section of the long awaited East-West Metro line was opened to the public. Ms Banarjee, ex Railways Minister and now Chief Minister of West Bengal was not invited to the launch and is very cross about it. D wasn't invited either but cannot resist the lure of new track miles. Ola's Iftekhar drops D at the main gate of Salt Lake Stadium, allegedly the location of the western terminus of the new metro section.

The stadium is set in rather nice gardens and the staff are numerous, if somewhat ill informed about the new metro. About 50% have never heard of it and the other half pretend that they know about it. The concensus view is that D should report to the stadium office somewhere in an anticlockwise direction. After three quarters of a circuit it becomes apparent that they are all bluffing. A perimeter gate with people on duty is spotted. The three of them confer, phone a friend and rather hesitantly point to the east. Within a hundred yards the unmistakable elevated hangar of a metro station appears.

The place is immaculate and all in working order. The booking clerk smiles, the security guard wishes good morning. This line is identikit modern Indian Metro and could be Bangalore, Kochi or Hyderabad, lacking the Soviet era features of the original Kolkata line. It is not at all busy. Most of the passengers appear to be locals who want to have a good look at their neighbours' rooves. There are half hearted notices prohibiting photography but all and sundry are snapping away with their phones and D joins in. The line winds its way through the buildings and terminates at a place called Sector V. 

As D descends to purchase a token for the return trip the backstrap on D's other sandal comes adrift. D terminates the return at Salt Lake City Centre and finds a couple of cycle rickshaw wallas outside the station entrance. D points at the sandal and says "Repair" in a hopeful fashion. A positive response is received and a quote received for Go - Wait - Return. We go about a quarter of a mile into the back streets to where there is a small market with a pavement cobbler. He looks, opens a big tin of something sticky, applies it and then stitches the strap back in place. All for 30 rupees. 

After a stop for refreshment and a comfort break D embarks on the next phase. Enquiries as to the whereabouts of the bus stop for Esplanade are met with blank looks until D remembers to call it S-Planet. Thank you Julia. Over there, service 216. A few buses come and go but none are bound for Esplanade then a very smart bus appears with a scrolling destination board that says 'Howrah via MG Road'. That will do. This bus has stickers on it saying 'Electric Bus' and looks to be almost new, as the plastic wrappers are still on some of the seats. The a/c is effective, the legroom almost sufficient. The driving is like any other Indian bus. As we get closer to the middle of the city the traffic builds up but we get to MG Road Metro and D switches modes to a southbound train for three stops.

Much of the Esplanade terminal complex is now part of a building site for the new metro. This morning as we drove over the Maidan a northbound tram could be seen so today's finale is going to be on the Esplanade - Kidderpore route. Except that the Esplanade southern loop, where these trams turn seems to have been subsumed into the building work, and the lines heading south are covered by parked buses. D gives up after a fairly lengthy search and heads back to the north end.  The office is still there and they confirm that the Gariahat trams are running today, one chap even takes D and shows him where to stand and wait.

Previous experience has prepared D for a long wait but this time there is a distraction. Two lads are playing scratch cricket with a tennis ball. He even gets to field on a couple of occasions. After a while either mother or big sister insists on wielding the willow to show how it is done. At this point a tram appears. Sadly it is going to return to Shyambazaar, to the north east and is too far out of the way. D concedes defeat and takes the metro and a share auto back to the Ivy House. R has had a good day, including a walk in tge park at Rabindra Sarovar and experimenting with some watercolours that she bought in Mysore.

We have booked a table tonight at 6 Ballygunge Place, rather more upmarket than some of our usual haunts. On the way we divert via Citizens' Park, where we had noticed some kind of sound, light and water display going on on Friday night. The display was on again tonight and was worth spending ten minutes to watch. Our timing was perfect because everything was shut up and locked at the end of the display. On the way out we saw a notice, mainly in Bengali, which was headed 'Former Charlie Chaplin Park'.

The meal was good. We had hilsa in mustard sauce and prawns cooked in a coconut, with rice and luchis. And mishti doi in clay pots.