I took a trip?! Kolkata: part 1

I finally have some interesting stuff to post! Or, at least, more interesting than minutia of my job. Over the last ten days (if you backdate this entry by about a month), I took a bit of a holiday, going to Kolkata for a friend’s wedding and then visiting JM and VT, two friends from both undergrad and JPAL, at their home at Patna. I’m going to split these up into at least three entries, as, lets face it, there ain’t gonna be too many interesting tidbits after this. This is first of those will be about going around Kolkata; the wedding will come after.

After a 17 hour overnight train ride, which actually goes by quite fast, PG (a friend from Delhi) and I arrived in Kolkata. The families of the bride/groom were super nice, not only paying for our rooms and renting cars to take us around, but even putting a gift basket in our rooms! In return, I think we violated many cultural norms and were probably not great guests, but I’ll save those parts for the next post. We waited until going to Kolkata to get a wedding gift, so immediately headed out to go shopping for a nice laptop bag. PG decided that I should pose with each of the bags and take pictures for comparison: with luck, these will never see the light of day…. or make it to the Sartorialist, as he posed me for/threatened. Most surprising was how much the mall played up the Christmas season : White Christmas was even on constant loop, there was a full-on sled with fake reindeer, and even tons of Santa hats hanging from all the roof. Naturally, I celebrated the holiday with a sandwich from Subway.






When you think of Kolkata, your mind might initially go to Mother Teresa or stories of extreme poverty (Black Hole of Kolkata). However one of the more prominent features we noticed upon our arrival was that, wow, there sure are a lot of commies in West Bengal! While my travel companions were loathe to have their pictures taken with communist imagery, citing future employment concerns, I apparently lack such inhibitions. An academic career awaits!







I have about a zillion more of these, but will stop at this sweet billboard with a worker tearing off the evil capitalist chains binding him. Viva la revolucion!



One of the less communist images was the immense Victoria Memorial, which was built for Queen Victoria’s visit to India. Lonely Plant says that it would be just as famous as the Taj if it wasn’t, you know a huge symbol of colonialism, and that seems pretty accurate. To stop people from sneaking in to the monument, there are two concentric barbed wire fences, with some room in between them. The gentleman in this picture appears to be slowly realizing that he didn’t fully think things through re: jumping the fence to gain free admission. Measure twice, cut once, my friend.



When PG and I tried to get in, the line was so long that it took us 15 minutes to walk its length. While marveling at the level of patience exhibited by others, we instead strolled through the adjoining gardens, taking pictures from afar. The gardens had super neat trash cans shaped like animals, so I now have more pictures of trash receptacles than sites in Kolkata. I do question whether it would cause people to clean up after themselves… who would be so heartless as to toss gross lunch leavings into this adorable panda?


I have a zillion more of the trash cans, but here's the Victoria memorial. I'd like to think the distant and out of focus nature of this shot make it even more beautiful, but that doesn't make it true.



Naturally, we were comparing Delhi and Kolkata the whole time. For one, Kolkata has human-powered rickshaws, which I think every other city has outlawed. Of course, of the perhaps 40 rickshaw pullers that I saw, about half were napping on their rick and only one was actually working, so I think the market is sending a strong signal itself*....



Even outside of iconic colonial buildings, Western culture seemed to be evenly more firmly entrenched than in Delhi. For example, a lot of people in Kolkata seem to be interested in at least the culture of Christianity; in Delhi, Christmas was just a free day off. In addition to conversations we had with others at the wedding, this became clear when JM, VT and I tried to attend church services at a majestic Anglican cathedral on Christmas day. People were coming just to sample the service, constantly moving around to snap pictures, many with Santa hats hanging off the back of their heads. Needless to say, it wasn’t the most reverent space, but I was glad to be able to attend some service, even if not as powerful as one at the church I go to in Delhi. I was also amused by the Indian Santa walking around taking pictures with people. He will reappear later in this story, though not in this post.



I guess creepy Charlie Chaplin also lives in the North Pole?


All in all, I think I prefer Delhi: people may be pushy and constantly trying to cut me in line, but in many ways, it has become my city. Or perhaps I’ve just become a pushy Delhi walla myself I certainly seem to be falling out of touch with happenings in the US/current events. The other day, I was heard to say “Oh yeah, Person X is amazing. He’s going to become the first black president.” Yeah, I may need to get home pronto.

*Being in India is making me more and more interested in labor market rigidities and how cultural barriers to movement across industries can affect growth, but that is probably a difficult thing to identify empirically...