Random moments that keep us alive...........

This is basically an effort to let all know about that moments that keep us alive, make us forget all the pains, drive us to start afresh...These are some snapshots of such moments..

Durga Puja

Santiniketan Holi- A festival started by Rabindranath Tagore......

A tribute to the festival of colors with music, dance and art...

Christmas Celebration at the city...at the churches...at the roads...lights, colors everywhere..

Kolkata Book fair.............................

My city has so many colors to wear....so many things to celebrate....Those make my city keep moving on and on..... My city life Rocks...However good and bad it is..It is mine...The story of my own old city...

Nights that never end.......

Raat baaki, baat baaki….Hona hain jo, ho jane do..Never knew the night was so amazing just a few years back. Before entering college, always knew that after 10 pm that’s dinner time and then sleeping time. After entering college I first came to know that my city doesn’t at all sleep early at night  when I went to my friend’s birthday party at Venom …..My first late night at the city.

Venom is a club near Theatre Road, Kolkata. it’s one of the best clubs with fairly good music and good crowd. Above Fort Knox, the jewellery bazaar, is located the hottest nightclub in the city, rightly called Venom. This 4,500 sq ft of revelry is the place where the bold and the beautiful indulge. The place is perfect  to just  Walk in and simply unwind at the biggest dance floor (400sq ft) in the city. Three DJs maintain high levels of energy, with rock, hip-hop, house and Bollywood tracks. Sipping on wines and cocktails and watching the city lights changing from these heights are a great experience that will lure you to come back for more. For lovers looking for intimate moments and for folks who don’t want to dance, there is an area with two pool tables. But yah you'll have to book in advance, as this place is quite sought after. What’s more, there is a bar attached as well!

If you wanna see the most happening nightlife at Kolkata, you’ll have to visit Tantra, Kolkata’s most popular disc. it’s a inbuilt club with The Park hotel. Tantra is finest in club experience in India - 5,000 sq feet of high energy in all its forms.  It is Spread over two split-levels with distinctive personalities, the club has two bars, a pulsating dance floor, a hangout area called The Santra Room. Theme nights with celebrities, both national and international, best DJ music and special Sunday jam sessions make it the city's busiest address for the nights.

Foods……that we can die for.

Every day my heart says...I miss something. every day when I stand in queue for breakfast, every time when I see the sad lunch with two obvious dishes (DAL and CHAWAL), whenever I try some pathetic chats available at a place which is almost one hour away from city, whenever I find good chicken only at KFC or Venky’s, I do feel like screaming at the place I stay, crying at myself and begging for my city food. I have guaranteed some of my friends here that if they come to my city any day, I can take them to so many good food places that they’ll start a blog on those foods the next day.

Yes… my city is a proper foodie’s paradise. I don’t have to struggle much to think about my favorite food joints or dishes. But at first I’ll start with my home food. Like a very common statement obviously I’m expected to state that my mom is the best cook in the world. Yes. She is. May not be the best in the world (Truly speaking, I’ve tasted some better dishes elsewhere). But yes in some dishes, she’s just unbeatable. Some of those dishes are Prawn Malai Curry (It’s a prawn curry with coconut extracts), Hilsha Bhapa (It’s basically steamed Hilsha fish with Mustard paste and Mustard oil), Chinese Prom fret, Chicken Rezala, Matar Paneer, Alur Dam and so on…she also makes some yummy veg Bengali dishes. But no point to mention those names. The reader will hardly understand names. Maybe I’ll write up someday on Bengali dishes and I’ll write about those recipes that day.

The second food, all Bengali people can truly die for is the FUCHKA. It’s basically panipuri but a lot better than that. Trust me; this is not a biased statement. It’s a certified fact. Ok, in Kolkata you may find nowadays some mineral watered, well decorated, and nicely designed FUCHKA joints. But trust me; they don’t at all taste like the proper Kolkata FUCHKA. The best way to enjoy them is to have them on roadside stalls. I can remember of two such joints that I never miss if I go to my city. One is that bhaiya who sits outside the DAKSHINAPAN Mall at Gariahat. He’s just awesome. After having FUCHKA there, I thought of kissing his hand once. But considering his age and other visual distractions, I chucked the idea. Another place is near Belur math at Howrah. I had the similar kind of feelings for him too… this place is just 10 minutes away from my home and I used to be almost a regular visitor to his shop.

My city is also famous for its amazing Chinese foods. I have been to some places which I could never forget. One of them is Mainland China. This place is awesome for Chinese food lovers. But I felt it to be a bit expensive for students like us. I never went there with friends. It’s a place to go with family where you really don’t need to worry about the bill. 

With friends my favorite food joints used to be all the restaurants at China Town. It’s a place in Kolkata where all the Chinese people stay and they have created a small piece of china just in the heart of Kolkata. They celebrate all their Chinese festivals and on the day Chinese New Year no one should miss the place. On that day they decorate all the places, make some grate foods, and offer excellent discounts.  This is a place where you’ll get some authentic Chinese foods in an affordable price. There’s another interesting fact about this place. Every morning the people in this locality put up stall of some excellent breakfasts. I never visited the place at that time. So I really can’t say how the place looks like at that time, or how the food tastes. But yes. Heard a lot about it......

This is almost a brief look about my city food culture...a lot 2 write.....may b wl extend this post with some new interesting facts next time..Till then..be happy and eat a lot.

People people everywhere.....not an inch to stand...

People....the most important building block of any city. In fact people only make any town as a city or sometimes a megacity..If you really want to rank all the cities in terms of crowd, I bet my city would make a stand in top five ones.

Intro of my blog doesn't really mean that we here are overpopulated and all. But yes, we do love to form a crowd when something hits our heart...we can always relate to all festivals of all religions and castes...we can relate to Indian cricket team's wining every time no matter if Dada is there or not...we love to celebrate every small or big occasion with friends, family, people we know closely, even with people we hardly know.

I guess the biggest crowd my city ever saw was when Mr. Jyoti Basu died. I still remember the day. I was coming back home from IMS. I saw the entire AGC Bose Road was flooded with people and people. And surprisingly that crowd was not a paid crowd. People loved him, people followed him. That made every one to come out of their room and walk with his funeral.

The second biggest crowd you can expect in my city is the Durga puja crowd. Till the last year it was recorded that on Astami Night there was 40,000 people in just one famous puja pandal. People there go crazy on those four days of celebration. New clothes, various foods, colorful and lightened city roads, people just roaming around in the roads at midnight.....These are a few traits my city will never forget. I remember my   puja nights. Making a group of 15-20 friends and roaming in the city....eating all possible fast foods and praying hard to God to take care of our digestive system...Seeing the whole city in the streets really makes my city more beautiful....

On a last note...I just wanna say, no matter how much crowded my city is....It's great, it's beautiful....And it can always say..I have thousands of heartbeats to follow, whenever my heart beats.

City that never mutes.....

A story about my city..a story about my life..This is an effort to let you know about the place I love most. This is the place where I took my first breath, where I had my first food, where I had my first late night movie, where I met my first crush..eventually first love and so many more incidents...

This is a city that never mutes. People over here have opinions on every possible topic on this earth. Be it a nuclear deal or IPL, be it a Assembly election or Abhishek Bachhan's marriage, they don't get tired of discussing. This is the pulse of my city. You'll never feel bored of travelling through bus or train or metro. You'll find so many discussions to join, so many gossips to listen to, so many funny arguments to watch. Though the topic differs from place to place..If it's a morning local from Krishnanagar to Sealdah, it's more likely that you'll find some discussions over latest cricket match or rising price of potatoes. If it's a evening local and in the lady's compartment, you'll find arguments over T.V serial climax or some colleague gossips. The scene changes when it's a metro @office time. There the chit-chat is over share price index or latest businesss deals or may be sometimes which school is best for your kids.

The Adda talent of my city won't be properly described if I don't mention the essence of Kolkata Coffee House. As per the CCD tagline- "A lot can happen over coffee"...Here it's not just a tagline for us. We have seen so many things to be happened over coffee. We have seen ugliest break ups, most romantic proposals, upcoming artists making great paintings, friends discovering their poetic talents....have seen a lot at Coffee House. It's not a place for us to hangout, it's the place for structuring Kolkata culture. Here we got our first political insights, here we sorted out so many misunderstandings, here we met so many old friends. This is a place where you have to shout every time. May be from this place itself we learnt how to shout for our own rights.

The same thing follows for the political scene in our city too..After coming to another city for study reasons, I noticed one thing that people listens to other's opinions seriously here. The problem with my city is people over there are so  busy talking and presenting their views, they hardly bother to listen to other's opinions. That leads to miscommunication and confusions....And so many political issues.

Now it's my suggestion to my city, my love..talk less, talk sense. Discuss more, argue less...Learn more, teach less...Have a gr8 time.....