For many years, as I listened to my colleagues ' stories about India, I mentally traveled with them around the country... But no matter how many stories you listen to or read about India, every person who has been there has their own story. India leaves no one indifferent...

Kolkata, which until recently, until January 2001, was called Calcutta, met us with a 35-degree heat wave. The "Ambassador" provided to us - the first-born of the Indian automobile industry-joined the general flow of vehicles, sometimes overtaking and sometimes cutting off other cars.

A car very similar to our Moskvich is as much an essential attribute of Kolkata as a black cab in London or a yellow taxi in New York. The first "Ambassador" rolled off the assembly line in 1948, produced by the Hindustan Motor company, founded in Calcutta in 1942.

CARS AND SLUMS

Thanks to new roads crossing Kolkata, the demand for cars in the city has increased dramatically. Although the reason is not only in the quality of highways-the way of life of Indians has changed. Over the past 10 - 20 years, the level of well-being of urban residents has significantly increased. In addition, many banks issue loans to buy cars. Thanks to the release by Tata of the cheapest (in the world!) The price of a Nano car is just 100 thousand rupees, or 2 thousand dollars, and in the near future their number on Indian roads will significantly increase. This Indian company, like Ford's enterprises in its time, created a car for the middle class. However, the appearance of a large number of personal vehicles did not lead to the disappearance of rickshaws, in huge numbers scurrying through the streets of Kolkata.

The airport is located on the outskirts of the city, and the picture here is monotonous and bleak: tents, huts, adobe buildings, street "sewage"... But the tap is running water, and someone is collecting it in buckets, someone is washing, washing... Here, closer to the water, children play and dogs relax... The slums, where almost a quarter of the city's population lives, have their own life, far from the nanotechnology that is being successfully developed in India. Attempts by the authorities to relocate their inhabitants to new areas, providing them with "normal" housing, have not yet yielded tangible results.

There are many beggars in the city. Homeless people live on the streets as whole families. Not far from the Internet cafe, whose services we constantly used, a large family (or several families?) lived right on the sidewalk: adult men and women, old people, children... The adults took the children with their toothbrushes somewhere, probably to the water supply, where everyone took turns making a morning toilet, and then returned. Indian beggars are not aggressive. I watched as the policeman talked to them, no harsh words, no insults.

KOLKAT FOOD SERVICE

Our room in the university hotel is a two-bedroom apartment: two bedrooms, a large spacious living room, a kitchen... The old air conditioners and fans were working properly. All the fears about cockroaches, mosquitoes, lizards and other animals that I read about on the Internet have disappeared... In general, you can live, it remains to decide on food.

In our area of Baliganj, as in other parts of Kolkata, there are many restaurants and cafes belonging to the category of "fast food", and

page 70
there are also cheap open-air canteens and small restaurants. One of the dining rooms was located right at the entrance to our hotel. For just 10 rupees, you could get a plate of crumbly rice, pea meatballs with gravy, thin chapati cakes and traditional milk tea. Customers of such establishments are usually people with low incomes: taxi drivers, workers. The middle class and young people prefer McDonalds, Domino's pizzerias, and low-cost restaurants.

The menus of cafes and restaurants created according to European and American models are made taking into account Indian traditions: vegetarian burgers, pizza, etc. But there are also purely Indian cafes - with national cuisine, but with a "European" level of service, for example, Haldiram's. This is a whole complex: a pastry shop, a canteen, a supermarket... Spacious halls, cleanliness and comfort, and a variety of cuisine have made Haldiram's a favorite place for citizens: family holidays are celebrated here, couples meet in love, and business partners discuss their problems at a business lunch.

The first candy store owned by Haldiram's was opened in 1937 in Bikaner, Rajasthan. Years have passed, and now the company exports its products - spices and sweets - to different countries of the world, primarily to the United States, where for Indian immigrants Haldiram's is the epitome of home-made food, familiar from childhood.

In 2009, the company's export volume reached $6 million. In the coming years, the company's management plans to increase exports by 40% and start delivering to Eastern Europe and North Africa.

I once asked an Indian friend the question: "Why do Indians love fast food so much and buy takeaway food? "More women have started working," she said, " I want to relax after work, socialize with the children, and they cook in good restaurants and cafes just as delicious as at home, so why waste time on this? You can also use "fast food "with"!".

KOLKATA METRO

I was pleasantly surprised by the Kolkata metro: spacious and clean lobbies, spacious cars, cool air, security system... It is forbidden to take photos in the subway. My attempt to capture the ride in the train ended up being reprimanded by a vigilant child.

The disadvantage of the Kolkata metro is the presence of only one branch line with 17 stations. For a city with an area of about 2 thousand square kilometers and a population of 15 million people, this, of course, is not enough. The metro is expanding, but very slowly. The plan for the construction of five subway lines to connect the northern part of the city with the southern part was developed back in 1971. Two years later, the project was launched, and the first section was opened in 1984. In August 2009, the southern section of the line started operating, and on January 2, 2010, a ceremony was held to start construction of the metro line in the northern part of the city.

CRICKET PASSION

The largest open space - Maidan* (400 ha of land) within the city limits lives up to its name. Cleared of jungle by the British, the Maidan once served as a resting place for soldiers and civil servants of the East India Company. Today, citizens come to the Maidan to breathe fresh air, ride horses, play football and cricket. Sports, cultural and other events are held here. Along the Maidan, there are numerous sports clubs that stretch to the Gardens of Eden Stadium, where their favorite cricket team, the Kolkata Knight Riders, trains and matches.

Kolkata residents have been playing cricket for over 200 years. It is played everywhere: in parks, on the streets, on school sports grounds. "Boys in India are born with a bat," the locals joke. First, the child is bought a plastic bat the size of two toothpicks. Then, if the parents are wealthy, they buy him a real bat. Often, teenagers buy it in a fold or cut it out of a piece of willow.

No other sport in India can match the huge popularity of cricket. "Cricket is to an Indian what football is to a Brazilian," one student told us. During the sports season, which runs from April to June, all other entertainment (talk shows, soap operas, Bollywood movies, etc.) goes by the wayside. Even prisoners support their favorite teams. So, in the central prison of Kolkata, they staged a mass hunger strike because of the refusal of the administration to connect to a paid channel broadcasting matches of the national cricket championship.

* Maidan (here from the Persian meydan - square) means any open area, park or square.

page 71
Cricket competitions are accompanied by colorful shows with movie stars. For the first time such a show in support of his team was arranged by the "king of Bollywood" Shakrukh Khan. Later, other actors followed suit. In February 2008, the company Red Chillies Entertainment, owned by Sh. Khan, bought the Kolkata Knight Rider cricket team for $76 million. Huge billboards with the image of Sh. Khan and his team, with their famous motto "Korbo, Lorbo, Jitbo Re" ("We will do it - we will fight and win!") are installed all over Kolkata. The team's official colors-black and gold-symbolize the courage and power of the goddess Kali and the spirit of victory. The team also has its own mascot-a funny royal Bengal tiger. His name is Hooghly, after the name of the river that runs through Kolkata.

The form for the players was designed by the famous Indian designer Manish Malhotra. For fans, there are souvenir shops and clothing with the team's emblems. We visited one of them. Along with the cricket equipment, leather sneakers, popular among young people, were sold. They are manufactured in the factories of Bata India Ltd., a company based in Kolkata as a subsidiary of Bata Shoes (Toronto). The Indian branch sells on the domestic market and exports mainly to European countries about 60 million pairs of shoes per year, as well as components and leather goods, and has an annual turnover of more than $178 million. 5 factories of the company are located near Kolkata, which will allow the city to be considered the main manufacturer and exporter of products.

FRUITS OF GLOBALIZATION

Finishing our tour of the "heart of Kolkata", we decided to go to an Internet cafe. Almost no interior, shabby tables and chairs... A small number of visitors - mostly students and foreigners - can spend a long time at a dozen computers installed here for just 10 rupees per hour.

Information Technology (IT) is the newest and most flourishing industry in West Bengal. More than 180 IT companies and 55 IT services companies operate in the region. Their total staff reaches 35 thousand people. It is expected that by 2011, this industry will create jobs for another 25 thousand people.

Almost all international IT giants - Pricewaterhouse Coopers, IBM, TCS, Cognizant, Skytech, Lexmark, AIG, HSBC - have their branches in Kolkata, where, by the way, a huge number of projects are born. Among them is an IT park currently under construction.

Kolkata residents love their city and call it "the city of fun". On Sundays, parks, squares and numerous museums are filled with tourists and citizens. Kolkat residents also love family shopping. Kolkata is a shopper's paradise. If earlier residents of the city mainly shopped at markets, today they are offered hypermarkets, where well-known national and international trade brands are gathered under one roof.

One of them is the largest South City Mall in Eastern India. Here, on an area of over one million square meters. m, there are hundreds of retail outlets, including European companies Beneton, Marks & Spencer, etc., an entertainment center, six cinemas, a cafe chain that presents cuisines from different regions of India and other countries. The total amount spent on the construction of the complex is 6.5 billion rubles. Rs. The creation of shopping complexes in Kolkata, and there are already 12 of them, helps the city to some extent solve the problem of employment.

During our stay in Kolkata, the 15th International Film Festival was held, which was announced by numerous billboards hung around the city. It was attended by Mexico, Senegal, France, Brazil, Germany, Great Britain, Turkey and others. countries. Kolkata is the birthplace of world-renowned cinematographers Hiral Sen, Satyajit Ray, and Ghatak. In 1995, it hosted the first independent film festival, which was later recognized internationally.

* * *

One of the eternal problems of megacities is the overpopulation of the center, and Kolkata is no exception in this sense. By offloading the center, municipal governments are building high-rise residential buildings, such as the 35-story towers in South City, and moving government offices to skyscrapers built in the Salt Lake Central Park area.

The city continues to grow and change its appearance. If the eastern part of Kolkata is actively being built and reconstructed, then the western part looks neglected because of the slums. The bleakness of the view is added by historical monuments - buildings of the XVIII-XIX centuries, many of which are dilapidated and destroyed. Private owners and tenants are not involved in restoration. Under Indian law, the state does not interfere in the internal affairs of private individuals; laws on tenancy are outdated, and new ones that would oblige owners to allocate funds for the restoration of ancient buildings have not yet been adopted. However, despite all the existing difficulties, the western part of Kolkata is gradually being updated. For example, an agreement was signed with the Indonesian company Chiputra on the construction of a satellite city of Kolkata in the Dankuni region.

Kolkata is an amazing combination of new and old: against the backdrop of skyscrapers under construction - crumbling buildings of the Victorian era; luxury hotels and shops, beautiful gardens and parks and the poverty of a significant part of the city's inhabitants.

In recent years, there has been an influx of investment in housing construction. Kolkata is becoming home to many industrial companies and banks (United Bank of India, UCO Bank, Allahabad Bank, etc.). And due to the recent opening of a trade route through Sikkim with China, many countries have taken a special interest in Kolkata - the "Gateway of East India".

Permanent link to this publication: