City of Joy - - - In which angle?

Most of us are aware that Kolkata is named as the city of joy.

As a prelude, I apologize to you kolkatans who may get hurt reading this article, it is not my intention to hurt you or your sentimentality but, my bitter experience.

I had worked in this city of Kolkata for abut 3 months. I was working for a Telecom company as a project lead and our project was to install Towers for Mobile network.

All other circles in India had 1 lead, or a maximum 2, whereas Kolkata is the only place where my company deputed 11 project leads. Such is the difficult terrain Kolkata is. Imagine it was not for West Bengal. It was just for Kolkata.

The work starts in all other circles by 9 AM. In Kolkata 9 AM is very early morning. Workers slowly start their jobs by 11 AM. By exactly 12, they take a break for coffee and by 2 they take a break for lunch. Exactly by 3:30 they pack their tools up and leave the place. Reason given..... IF we start now we will reach our homes only by 10 PM as traffic is terrific in Kolkata.

Imagine! How a project could be delivered in such snails pace?

Where it took 2 months to complete a site, in Kolkata it would take 2 years to just complete the civil work. Then another 2 months for other installations.

This is the pace if the work is on without disruption. Oh yes… disruption… that is a key word. You can count the number of days the work happened in a year. Disruptions are so many. The Local party goons are very strong and in the nexus to earn more money they would some how stop the work. One of the party members stopped the work stating that the radiation from the mobile tower will cause cancer to the school children near by. No way was he ready to be convinced and even a court order would not suffice, he wanted an amount which was exorbitant, it was a sum more than the tower was worth. Fearing him no workers would dare to come up for work. I think that site is still pending for the Indian telecom major.

Well traffic is another snarl. The drivers would just stop anywhere and start “kotha bole” The following traffic would just stop behind till the blocking vehicle moves after the “Kotha”

The Hoogly river was another horrifying experience to see “green” water flowing.

Well that’s all about my bitter experience

I have very few good experiences as well.

Inexpensive Food, Golla, and yes, I found a south Indian Dosa joint there and used to have dosa daily. This was haven indeed for a southie like me who could not exist on lucci and alloo.