Kolkata Here I come

That was June 23rd 2004. I had a grand send off, nothing short of what a politician going abroad would get. And then I boarded the Falaknuma SUPER FAST Express. My ignorance started at mocking me the moment I entered it.

I knew I had to go to Kolkata, someone advised me to board this train and I took a ticket till the last stop, called Howrah. Once on train, my first doubt was how do I reach Kolkata from Howrah. How long will this train take to reach Howrah. In a sense, my long term planning was only till the next 20 hours and had no clue what was to happen after that. All this was on the Net at the click of a button. But, for the Computer Science Engineer that I am, I never really browsed and had no clue that this information is searchable. That was me, my self about two years ago.

The journey was really long, twenty seven and half hours to be precise. The pantry food was bad. Rather I picked up the wrong ones from a decent collection. That is information at act once again.

I made a few friends, a couple of them who are going to be my batch mates for the next two years. Unfortunately, their knowledge levels weren't any better. Like-meets-Like effect. We managed to find a taxi, paid him about twice the regular fare with our superior bargaining skills and ventured into Kolkata. ( By this time I had figured out that our campus was reachable by cab from Howrah. Wow! What a discovery!)

For the first three kilometers, I thought Kolkata was in fact liveable. There were buildings, some really tall ones, not to forget the Tata Steel building in Esplanade and I thought this City is like any other city. Slowly, the buildings become older, the exteriors gloomier. Most buildings didn't have a dash of paint for at least two decades. The streets became narrower, the tram tracks more pronounced, so did the addas held on them. The streets got busier, the hawkers louder. One word to put it all - Crowded.

For a few minutes, we sang "Yamaha nagari....". Despite the bad first impression, there was a bond already gaining strength. This is the place that is all set to make my career and put me amongst the most sought after people of this country. A couple of names like Behala appeared on the sign boards and we reassured ourselves that we are on the right road. At that time, I didn't know that the Kolkata Cab Drivers never take you through the wrong route.

An hour of this smoky stretch and we saw a HUGE blue colour board with 'Indian Institute of Management Calcutta' written in bold letters. My eyes closed instinctively and tears rolled for a moment. And we entered a campus, that reminded me of Indira Park at first sight. The cab twisted and turned, finding its way to the Hostels on a narrow driveway bordering a few huge water bodies. From that day, this is my home, a 130 acre home.