Kolkata day 2
Hi!
On Friday, Oct 23, our group of four (me, Calvin Mak, Shubhodeep Roy and Tanmoy Chatterjee) met up early at Kolkata's famous flower market.
We shot outdoors, indoors and in the tunnels to the north. We spent some time on the ghat (the stairs and slope down towards the river), where many things were happening. People washing in the river. Wedding shoots. A child combing her mother's hair. A priest or guru chanting to his congregation of two. Dogs sleeping or looking for scraps. Lots of pigeons, who are fed at this ghat. There was wrestling practice, but Tanmoy told us they weren't okay with photos taken without payment.
Going through the tunnels northwards, we came to the area where big lorries are being unloaded of their cargo. This area just goes on and on. At first, it's products for the flower market; further on, it's for the Burra Bazaar, the gigantic all-round wholesale market, where we went next. We spent some time there, mostly in the fruit-selling part. Porters are everywhere, hurriedly going with boxes or baskets of produce, headed for smaller retail markets or shops. You really have to watch where you're going and get out of the way if you don't want to be tackled.
Lunchtime was coming up, and Tanmoy led us to a classic biryani restaurant. We had a nice lunch of mutton biryani before I went back to the hotel.
When I got there, I wasn't feeling very well. I had a nap, but felt the lunch going more upwards than down. Suddenly, I had to rush to the toilet and puked up the whole lunch. I took my stomach medicine and lay down again. The rest of the day was not good, but by evening I felt like I could have some plain boiled rice. The next day was the workshop.... But, as I have written before, that went okay.
Take care!
Niklas
