Venk's Indian Adventure Venk Chandran

Stay tuned to MyBindi as Venk will be sharing his experiences with us while travelling through India.

Week 3: Delhi-> Calcutta-> Madras(Chennai)

Delhi flew by rather quickly because of my bout with bronchitis. An event brought up by the Delhi pollution, an overnight stay in a Delhi jail cell (more on that later) and the cold. Yes, Delhi can be bloody cold if you're not ready for it. So I got to sit and drink tea, eat toast and fall prey to the whims of my 88 year old grandmother who (speaking no english except for "do you want tea?") who doted on me the whole time. She is so old she looks like Yoda, and she's got this habit of squirreling away clothes, washing them and hanging them up in the terrace. Of course, she's absolutely blind, and as I tease her in Tamil - her hair is so white it's turning into a nice shade of blonde.

My thoughts turn to Calcutta, where my mother grew up. We stayed in Calcutta for about a week (I'm writing from Madras - Chennai right now) in my aunt's house. Calcutta has actually seen better times. While the rest of India has grown in industry, the growth has been somewhat stymied in the communist majority government of West Bengal. Calcutta used to be a city for a growing educated middle class, but that seems to have changed. Education in Calcutta is still by far the cheapest in the country - a masters program here is 10 RS a month! But there is no middle class here tending and growing families - most of them leave whenever they can for other states. It reminds me a lot like Canadian suburbia.

Internet Café's and Bengali Thali's

The city, once the capital of British-run India is a lot dirtier than it once was, and the proliferation of people, cars, and bullock carts are testing the limits of hastily built roads and fly-overs. This city hasn't become immune to the high-tech bug that permeates India right now. There are Internet café's all over the place, and dot-coms are still the rage. And people here eat well. Surprisingly, Bengali restaurants are hard to come by. My advice: check out a decent Bengali Thali at Kewpies on Elgin road. There still remains a lot to see of Calcutta including Victoria Memorial, which still stands out as the British version of Aurengzeb's Taj. Underneath all the human traffic you can still smell the riches of the Raj; there are some monuments in this city that bespeak times of complete and utter exploitation. A time of 50 man palanquins, 50 servants per person, and even boys in charge of scaring crows away from the Viceroy's homes.

My mother lived in a two-room apartment with her two brothers, 3 sisters, and her parents. When we visited her old area, most of the south Indians that permeated the bloc (and whose kids now live in Canada as our parents and bloc of friends) had long since moved off. In fact the only same character was the old masala moudi/ paan/chaat seller near her high school. He's been at it for 40 years. Apparently he looks the same. Of course, eating drinking Calcutta's famous bhel/paani pourris is pretty much a death wish for me and any other Canadian - Indian or otherwise.

Travel suggestions

Delhi is by far the most polluted city in India - so be brave if you're asthmatic. It gets cold in the evenings, and the mosquitos still like to prey. Odomos is key, not only for Delhi but India all-together.


Week 1: Arrival and Mumbai

Week 2: More Mumbai->Indore->New Delhi

Week 3: Delhi->Madras(Chennai)->Calcutta

Week 4: Fear and Loathing in Goa