Kolkata. A football match, a polar bear and cake.

Although I’m not the biggest football fan and can count the number of live matches I’ve attended on three fingers, I was sold on the idea of attending a ‘never been seen before’ event in India (two South American teams playing on Indian soil) and the chance to return to Kolkata, a city that I first visited in April this year and fell in love with.

The football match was an interesting experience. It was less about the two teams playing (Argentina vs. Venezuela) and more about one man, Lionel Messi, “Considered the best football player of his generation and increasingly one of the best players of all-time,” – Wikipedia (luckily I wasn’t quizzed about him at the time otherwise it would have been another Sachin Tendulkar moment). The whole stadium was gripped with Messi mania so much so that the only time people cheered was when Messi had the ball. They’d handily stuck him in a pair of luminous yellow trainers making him easier to identify, not that you could really miss him. The strangest moment was just before the game started when, instead of standing up to cheer, everyone sat down and if you didn’t conform you promptly had a boiled sweet thrown at your head from someone in the rows behind. I was glad that I went as although the game was a little slow (apparently no one wants to get injured at a friendly which is why it’s a bit more like a gentle kick about) it was definitely an experience to witness and I can now add Messi to my ‘sports people that I know something about’ list of about seven people. Oh, and Argentina won 1-0.

So, why do I like Kolkata so much? Its population is even denser than Delhi’s, there are twice as many traffic accidents (the yellow taxis, autos and motorbikes drive at lightning speed and although there is a one way system, at certain times of day it changes so the traffic has to suddenly switch and go in the opposite direction) and it has some of the most ingenious use of space I’ve ever seen. On this visit we went into a jewellery shop that was the size of a broom cupboard and could just about accommodate the small grey haired man that ran it and one other person. He looked pretty bewildered that we’d stumbled upon the place and even more confused when we purchased stuff. It’s possible we had accidentally walked into his cupboard.

High population density, traffic accidents and shops the size of cupboards, my criteria for a ‘great’ city. Guess that’s what living in Delhi does to you. There’s more to it though as Kolkata has certain things that Delhi doesn’t; Peter Cat and Flurys for example – Peter Cat serves the most amazing Bengali fish, meat and veggie dishes and their Kabuli naan is possibly one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. I went into Flurys for the first time this visit and would have probably stayed there and not returned to Delhi if I didn’t have a job I needed to get back for. They serve the best coffee I’ve tasted in eight months and cakes that are so good I felt a sense of loss and sadness when I’d finished the last bite, mind you I do have a strong emotional attachment to most baked goods. There are also certain things I notice in Kolkata that you wouldn’t generally see in Delhi; couples holding hands in public view (hand holding between men and women is a clandestine activity usually reserved for the parks in Delhi), you see more women on the street in groups together or performing roles that are usually reserved for men in Delhi (running small shops and darbars – street food stalls), and most people don’t bat an eyelid at foreigners walking down the street, unless you are visiting one of the public attractions in which case you become more interesting than the attractions and will most likely be approached for the usual family photo calls (to be in them, not take them).

Kolkata also has some of my favourite sights. This was my second visit to Park Street Cemetery, opened in 1767 and where British Captains, Earls, Shipmasters, Viceroys and their family members who worked and lived in Kolkata during the British Raj were buried. Some of the graves and memorials are engraved with the most beautifully written and heartfelt dedications to deceased wives, husbands and family members and others are interesting markers of the past, including those which document some of the more cringe-worthy colonising ‘achievements’ of the deceased. The cemetery was originally built on marshland and at this particular time of year the rains had caused a layer of bright green moss to grow over the memorials creating the atmosphere of a jungle graveyard in the middle of the city. When you visit you are asked to sign the visitors’ book by the two caretakers that look after the cemetery. They always seem delighted to see visitors (it’s mostly only interested foreign visitors that go there now) and are keen to tell you about the cemetery’s history and past visitors.

Although I didn’t visit it this time round, the first time I visited Kolkata I went to the Indian Museum. Possibly one of my favourite museums yet, controversially because of the fact it looks as though it has been completely untouched since the Victorian era. Huge dusty glass cases containing a giant walrus, the brownest polar bear I’ve ever seen, large lumps of asbestos (I’ve never walked so quickly past an exhibit), wale bones and other more unsavoury specimens. Not for everyone I admit, but being a museum geek I found it sort of fascinating to see a museum that has become a museum piece in itself.

Kolkata was the capital of India during the British Empire’s reign over India and the centre of the East India Trading Company until the capital was moved from Calcutta/Kolkata to Delhi in 1911. Hence the existence of sights like the Park Street Cemetery, St Paul’s Cathedral and Kolkata’s centrepiece, the Victoria Monument, an impressive white marble building surrounded by neatly cut lawns, lakes and flowerbeds and a large sombre statue of Queen Victoria heading up the entrance. Apparently many of the other colonial monuments in Kolkata have since been destroyed or renamed and Victoria Monument is one of the few that has remained and kept its name. I have to admit that my attachment to Kolkata is tinged with a slight sense of guilt, as part of the reason for my attachment is possibly because there are aspects of the city that remind me of home and of my country's own history. This on its own wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it weren’t a point in our history when the British were entering cities like Kolkata, milking the country’s resources and enforcing their politics, legislation, language, architecture and own cultural ‘norms.’ And those are the milder details. Not exactly our finest moment. However, it’s a point in history all the same and one that shouldn’t be forgotten, if only so that we never repeat the same mistakes and I’m grateful that these particular monuments and reminders still remain.

When I returned to Delhi I was comparing notes with my colleague who had been in Kolkata just a few days before me. When he found out that I had not tried a single Bengali sweet on either visit I was greeted with the now all too familiar perplexed look and sad shaking of the head which signifies, “have we taught this British girl nothing during her eight months in India?” The same shaking of the head which I received the time I did not know keeping an onion in your pocket was the secret of staying cool or the time I did not know that raw egg was “obviously” the cure for hair loss, or that the reason I kept getting sick was because I’d not been taking my daily dose of curd (natural yoghurt).

So if you go to Kolkata, don’t forget to try the Bengali sweets.