Crowds make me feel dizzy and polluted. But it is something you can’t avoid in India. We are a lot and we are hardly doing anything about it. I went to Kolkata many times, mainly for work or to take connecting flights to some other city. I never thought much about it and was always like an everyday place for me. Until this December. And this time I really felt the crowd.
My girlfriend was in Kolkata and we planned a day out in there. It was Christmas time. Streets were shiny, full of colors. Shopping temptation was raising in the air and my girl’s prority list was slowly changing. Buying cute stuffs like soft toys and kitty key chains for her is what is like blood for vampires. (I recently started watching Vampire Diaries). Anyway I am really thankful to her, otherwise I would have never gone to New Market area near Esplanade. It is a crowd bomb, cunningly cheap for the stuffs that were otherwise sold ten times the price in any standard mall, it is a heaven for shopping people.
So while she was busy finding shoes in one shop, the tired me thought of searching internet something about this place. So then I knew that the history goes back 1874 and the chief builder was awarded with Rs 1000 for his achievements (a great sum of money in that time). So here is some Wikipedia write ups that I found interesting.
“Despite the appearance of new air-conditioned, American-style, shopping malls all over Kolkata, New Market, which has survived two devastating fires and regular flooding, remains at the core of the shopping experience in the city. Over 2000 stalls under its roof sell everything from clothing to wheeled luggage to electronics to a special cheese found nowhere else. Under its apparent chaos lie extraordinary finds as well as remarkable bargains.”
Interesting, isnt it?
one foot after another 