Calcutta: chai, coffee, and the ghats

This is the last of the Calcutta posts. I couldn't complete my brief picture of Calcutta without mentioning the chai wallahs (tea men) who are found all over India. This guy here, had a spot on the sidewalk near the Seagull gallery where Dave's show was hanging. The sidewalks in Calcutta are usually for selling and sleeping, which is why there are so many people walking on the streets. That, and because there are just a whole lot of people there. The art adorning this tea stall is quite typical: calendars with Hindi gods/goddesses, and a photo of the deceased father of the current proprietor. The small tea cup he is pouring into is made of fired clay. It is used once and thrown on the ground, with the other garbage. FYI, a cup of chai like this costs between 2.5 and 4 rupees. ($1 = 40 rupees)


Doodh-man. Dude-man. Milkman. Milk is a very important ingredient in Indian tea (chai). The are many doodhs like this riding throughout the streets of Calcutta. Not all of them have such stylin' mudflaps.






Not even in competition with tea, coffee can be found at some places in Calcutta, but almost never in a street stall. The most beautiful and famous place for a cup of (pretty terrible) coffee is The Coffee House, a co-op that was the meeting place of many of the more famous Bengali intellectuals, like Tagore, whose picture hangs on the wall.


Looking down for the Coffee House stairwell. You can see our bikes parked beside the motorbikes.


I rode by this stretch of Bentick Street almost everyday. The green mosque is in the background. It is about half way between Hotel Neelam and Mr. Ghosh's shop. One day, I was on foot here on the way to the art store to buy all of the large french paper I could find in the city (10 sheets). It was then I realised how visible a minority I was in parts of Calcutta, because people I had never met were all asking me "where is your bicycle" or just smiling and saying "bicycle" while miming the holding of the handlebars.




Sundays usually ended with us down at the ghats near the flower market. It was here that I saw one of my favourite Indians: a content little boy with little scissors cutting up little discarded pieces of coloured foam. He was all we should ever want to be.