It was Saturday the 6th of August. Our flight to Kolkata was booked for the evening. Deepu had a lot of shopping left both for Nathula as well as her forthcoming US trip. Being a working day I had to be at the office and that particular day I had so much work to wind up, I would have needed at least 48 hrs to do some justice. So Deepu decided to accompany me to the office. After dropping me there she would then go ahead with her shopping list. It was about 1 noon and i gave her a call, only find she hadn't still picked a single thing in her list and I still had a hell a lot of work left, especially a presentation to be prepared at the State Intelligence Office. So we decided we'll go out for lunch first and then Deepu can drop me off at the Intelligence office and continue with her shopping while I'm finishing my presentation work.
The plan was to some how get rid of the presentation job by the trip 'bahana' and then rush home to pack for the evening flight. So I did and left the Intel office by 4 pm. Deepu was there to pick me up again. It was raining so bad and Deepu still had to pick up a jacket for her trip. In drenching rain we checked a few places and she finally managed to pick one at the Westside. It was already 5.30 by then and we had to reach home, pack and make it to the airport that is 40kms away by 8.30 pm at the most. We rushed home by 6.30, packed by 7 and jumped into the vehicle asking the driver to take all the shortcuts he knew. After a hell of a ride in pouring rain and through routes that we'd never been, we made it to the airport by 8.20. Took the 9.20 flight and landed in Kolkata just before midnight.
My batchmate and SP of Murshidabad, had arranged for the vehicle and accommodation in Kolkata at the Port Trust guest house. We reached the guest house well past midnight. Apart from being a nice guest house, there's one thing that definitely needs mention here and those are the interiors of the guest house suite. We were at first shocked and later somehow got used to them for the night. I have never seen a more over done interior than that, in my whole life.. the walls filled with Nawabi paintings and every inch of the roof, walls and floor so gaudily done up with Mughal or Nawabi patterns. I am sure no one can spend more than a night in that suite. Luckily for us... that was all that we had too. Our next flight to Bagdogra (Siliguri) was scheduled for afternoon the next day.
It was raining all through the night and we didn't have any trouble catching sleep, especially with the kind of day we had in Bangalore... and despite all the colourful people staring at us from the walls.
The next morning we woke late, had a wonderful continental breakfast and left for the airport. It continued to rain throughout. Though we could have a glimpse of Kolkata only through the dripping glass of the car, it seemed such a dirty city with heaps and heaps of garbage littered all through the length of the route. We spent most of our journey to the airport discussing how this city could be cleaned. I guess we finally gave up.
We took the 2pm flight to Bagdogra and landed there by 4. it was cloudy but no rain and we were greeted by the Police vehicle that came from Darjeeling to pick us up. We got on to it and thus started our journey up towards Darjeeling.
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