West Bengal and Kolkata

 I have visited Darjeeling, Siliguri and Shantiniketan too, but most visits have centred around Kolkata (Calcutta). IIMC used to host us for some meetings when I was in IIML and IIMK, and I went to Kolkata for a few admission interviews when I worked for KIAMS, Harihar.

Recently, I visited for some alumni meets of IMT Nagpur and Ghaziabad, and also to meet a friend a couple of years ago. A family visit also happened in the early 90s from Hyderabad. I always enjoyed the food and the ambience of the city, and the Clubs there too. I have been to around 3 or four of them, thanks to friends. Alpana, a friend from an MDP at IIM Indore, Sudeshna and Roopsha who are past students, I am yet to meet. But I have met Siddharth Agarwal of KIAMS, Aditi Sood and Pushpak from KIAMS there, and also Naveen Das and other colleagues when we visited NSHM. The Gariahat market used to be a haunt when we visited earlier. Some pics from visits-

Gariahat shopping, above, and Science Museum, with childhood friend Ajanta Sircar, below

Tollygunge with Dash.

Streets..

Tram ride, boat ride..

Kolkata- A Capital City

Kolkata it was, for the fourth of our alum get-togethers. In a historic setting, reminiscent of the British Raj. The hoary Tollygunge Club in south Kolkata was where we had the party. It was a small, intimate gathering unlike the very large crowd in Delhi and Mumbai. That could be because job opportunities in Kolkata are fairly limited, and most companies that recruit MBAs do so for other places of posting. But there were people from ITC, Proctor and Gamble (a good combo of professions), and so on, with some entrepreneurs too- a sort of contradiction in terms in Kolkata (this is not Gujarat).

However, that gave us a chance to chat peacefully, and exchange views over a drink or two.  Having three former members of our Alcom (students' committee that looks after Alumni relations) lled to a lively discussion about the past and the future of this important function in the context of IMT Ghaziabad,

It also gave me a chance to revisit the Calcutta Metro that I had seen since birth and suffered its pangs through traffic jams on my visits during its construction. I was briefly taken aback to find Tollygunge missing from the list of stations, until I discovered it had been renamed as Mahanayak Uttam Kumar. A nice gesture, but comuters need to know where they are going too- so they have Tollygunge area written in brackets everywhere. Being a Sunday, it was not too crowded on the metro.

To end, an original  PJ for the upcoming BIG Day.

Why did the Bong's wife get annoyed with him on Feb 14th?

Because he thought it was Ballantine's Day, and got drunk.