Yesterday I spent FIVE hours stuck in Kolkata traffic. I had thought it would be a good idea to get two things done in one day, and hence travel twice into the city centre, once in the morning and once in the evening. After all – the journey to church on a Sunday morning only takes 20 minutes – how bad could it be? Hmmm. I am now significantly older, wiser and more jaded. I had considerable time to reflect on this mistake yesterday, so here follows my learning that I hope can be of use for any unwary traveler in Kolkata:
a) Don’t travel anywhere in the city on a Monday morning
b) Ditto on the evening before a city wide strike (because you will encounter the rest of the city urgently getting somewhere)
c) If you do find a taxi journey during sunshine hours unavoidable, make sure you have with you:
- A large bottle of cold water (and possibly ORS as well given the amount you will sweat (or glow if you are a lady)
- Calm and soothing music on your MP3 player
- A blindfold (so you can be blithely unaware of the chaos around you)
- Smelling salts (to revive yourself after particularly close ‘close shaves’.
This is how traffic moves in Kolkata during the rush hour – about half a mile before a junction is a jam. The taxi driver drives up as fast as possible, slams on the brakes and beeps the horn (no doubt in the hope that the stationary traffic will magically get out of his way). He then creeps forward into a space that you thought would be impossible (ie on the pavement, between two buses, or in the face of oncoming traffic), stops, and beeps the horn again for good measure, and turns the engine off. The traffic lights, in the far distance, turn green, and there is a sudden cacophony of sound when all the drivers beep their horns and engines are turned back on, revved, and we speed forward all of 5 metres. The traffic lights turn red again. We stop. This continues five or more times until we are at the head of the queue, and can see the problem. Even though there are traffic lights, traffic from all four roads has got entwined together, with each driver trying to creep forward as far as possible and not allowing anyone else through. And it is not only cars. There are hand rickshaws, cycle rickshaws, pedestrians, lorries, trams and men pushing carts loaded with bags of concrete. This chaos gradually sorts itself out, and the lights turn green again, and we speed forward, and I sit back, relax, thinking off we go finally. But no, 5 seconds later the brakes are slammed, and we have reached the tail back before the next set of traffic lights. There are considerable numbers of traffic lights between my house and the city centre. And the closer to the city centre we got the more fractious and irritable got the drivers, so the noise levels significantly increased, as did the number of close shaves.
So, an hour and 15 minutes after stepping into the taxi I step out again at my destination, as limp and as sodden as if I had just run a marathon. I had arrived at the Foreign Registration Office, to pick up my registration documents. My visit actually took all of 5 minutes, as all I had to do was to pick them up. I had a fortifying cold sprite and pasty, thinking I would let the traffic clear a bit, and then fought my way to another taxi. Even at 12 in the afternoon, the traffic had not cleared, and it was over an hour later that I stepped back out at the office again.
Enough for one day, I hear you say. Well, yes. But then Judith and I were meeting the other VSO’s for a meal at a nice restaurant, and I thought that the traffic wouldn’t be too bad in the evening. Yeah, well, it again took one hour and 15minutes to get there – we spent half an hour getting down one side street…
But the restaurant was beautiful – it was on the ninth floor of a hotel in New Market and we sat outside in the cool breeze enjoying the sparkling city lights. Unfortunately not for long. The city lights seemed to be going out in one direction – there was a wave of blackness coming over. A power cut? No, there was a huge gust of wind (and I mean huge – chairs were knocked over) and the air was suddenly full of grit. Everyone staggered inside and stared in amazement at the now bucket loads of rain coming down. Can you believe after a month of being here, with not one drop of rain, the one evening we decide to have a meal in an open air restaurant there is a torrential thunderstorm. But I shouldn’t complain too much, as apparently the temperature dropped by 13 degrees in just one hour. It was cool! A mere 23 degrees at 9 o’clock at night. And just before we left the rain stopped, and we were able to get a taxi without much problem. My optimism that our journey back home, at 10 o’clock at night, couldn’t be too bad, was profoundly misplaced. It took over an hour again of beeping, and inching forward, and we were both profoundly thankful we got home without hitting anyone. There is a city wide strike today, so I guess everyone was trying to get everything done before that – there can be no other conceivable explanation.
Once we reached the street where I live there was another surprise: outside every house and stall there hung a red flag with a hammer and sickle.
Apparently I live in the Communist party stronghold of Kolkata. The building opposite Judith’s flat has pictures of Stalin, Lenin and Marx on it! At that time of night, and after such a tiring day I have to admit that I did start freaking out slightly – people were saying that the strike was linked to the Maoists who were demanding the release of two prisoners. But actually that wasn’t the case, and the strike in Kolkata is to do with rising food prices. But it is all very confusing.
So today there is no transport at all – no trains, no taxis, no flights, nothing. But I could still get into work, living as I do within walking distance.
a) Don’t travel anywhere in the city on a Monday morning
b) Ditto on the evening before a city wide strike (because you will encounter the rest of the city urgently getting somewhere)
c) If you do find a taxi journey during sunshine hours unavoidable, make sure you have with you:
- A large bottle of cold water (and possibly ORS as well given the amount you will sweat (or glow if you are a lady)
- Calm and soothing music on your MP3 player
- A blindfold (so you can be blithely unaware of the chaos around you)
- Smelling salts (to revive yourself after particularly close ‘close shaves’.
This is how traffic moves in Kolkata during the rush hour – about half a mile before a junction is a jam. The taxi driver drives up as fast as possible, slams on the brakes and beeps the horn (no doubt in the hope that the stationary traffic will magically get out of his way). He then creeps forward into a space that you thought would be impossible (ie on the pavement, between two buses, or in the face of oncoming traffic), stops, and beeps the horn again for good measure, and turns the engine off. The traffic lights, in the far distance, turn green, and there is a sudden cacophony of sound when all the drivers beep their horns and engines are turned back on, revved, and we speed forward all of 5 metres. The traffic lights turn red again. We stop. This continues five or more times until we are at the head of the queue, and can see the problem. Even though there are traffic lights, traffic from all four roads has got entwined together, with each driver trying to creep forward as far as possible and not allowing anyone else through. And it is not only cars. There are hand rickshaws, cycle rickshaws, pedestrians, lorries, trams and men pushing carts loaded with bags of concrete. This chaos gradually sorts itself out, and the lights turn green again, and we speed forward, and I sit back, relax, thinking off we go finally. But no, 5 seconds later the brakes are slammed, and we have reached the tail back before the next set of traffic lights. There are considerable numbers of traffic lights between my house and the city centre. And the closer to the city centre we got the more fractious and irritable got the drivers, so the noise levels significantly increased, as did the number of close shaves.
So, an hour and 15 minutes after stepping into the taxi I step out again at my destination, as limp and as sodden as if I had just run a marathon. I had arrived at the Foreign Registration Office, to pick up my registration documents. My visit actually took all of 5 minutes, as all I had to do was to pick them up. I had a fortifying cold sprite and pasty, thinking I would let the traffic clear a bit, and then fought my way to another taxi. Even at 12 in the afternoon, the traffic had not cleared, and it was over an hour later that I stepped back out at the office again.
Enough for one day, I hear you say. Well, yes. But then Judith and I were meeting the other VSO’s for a meal at a nice restaurant, and I thought that the traffic wouldn’t be too bad in the evening. Yeah, well, it again took one hour and 15minutes to get there – we spent half an hour getting down one side street…
But the restaurant was beautiful – it was on the ninth floor of a hotel in New Market and we sat outside in the cool breeze enjoying the sparkling city lights. Unfortunately not for long. The city lights seemed to be going out in one direction – there was a wave of blackness coming over. A power cut? No, there was a huge gust of wind (and I mean huge – chairs were knocked over) and the air was suddenly full of grit. Everyone staggered inside and stared in amazement at the now bucket loads of rain coming down. Can you believe after a month of being here, with not one drop of rain, the one evening we decide to have a meal in an open air restaurant there is a torrential thunderstorm. But I shouldn’t complain too much, as apparently the temperature dropped by 13 degrees in just one hour. It was cool! A mere 23 degrees at 9 o’clock at night. And just before we left the rain stopped, and we were able to get a taxi without much problem. My optimism that our journey back home, at 10 o’clock at night, couldn’t be too bad, was profoundly misplaced. It took over an hour again of beeping, and inching forward, and we were both profoundly thankful we got home without hitting anyone. There is a city wide strike today, so I guess everyone was trying to get everything done before that – there can be no other conceivable explanation.
Once we reached the street where I live there was another surprise: outside every house and stall there hung a red flag with a hammer and sickle.
Apparently I live in the Communist party stronghold of Kolkata. The building opposite Judith’s flat has pictures of Stalin, Lenin and Marx on it! At that time of night, and after such a tiring day I have to admit that I did start freaking out slightly – people were saying that the strike was linked to the Maoists who were demanding the release of two prisoners. But actually that wasn’t the case, and the strike in Kolkata is to do with rising food prices. But it is all very confusing.So today there is no transport at all – no trains, no taxis, no flights, nothing. But I could still get into work, living as I do within walking distance.
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