Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) is India's third largest city with around 14 million people, it is the capital city of the state of West Bengal and used to be India's capital city during the British rule. Kolkata conjures up images of human suffering to most Westerners, but locally it is regarded as India's intellectual and cultural capital.
I'm really excited about this, and I'm flying there on Sunday! First things to do will be finding an office / place to stay (we call it "the hive"), furnish it, meet with local potential partner NGO's, map out the city and its slum communities, and prepare for the first 1 month Fellowship program in July! Thankfully Tao (my buddy city co-founder) is arriving in India in a couple of weeks and Julie (the HQ finance manager) is coming up from Bangalore to help me in this daunting task :-)
City scouting in Lucknow
As you can see in the picture above, I still need a translator by my side at all times, although my Hindi is improving day by day. It has been quite a challenge to find them, so I'd like to thank them all for their help! Big up for Nidhi, Ridhi, Manish, Yogesh, Anand, Abhisheik, Julius, Jyoti, Rajesh, it's been awesome to meet, work and talk with you guys!
Who said traffic was crazy in their country never came to Lucknow, India
- Temples (the larger green ones) are pretty awesome. Made to carry 6, they can fit up to 14, and they have specific routes, kind of like buses, but much more frequent, and they're so cheap (from 5 to 15 rupees depending on how far you're going and the driver's mood). There's no way to tell where they're going either, except for yelling your destination to the driver. If he wobbles his head... well, who knows what that means :-) Just hop on and you'll see! As you can see, they are also great for napping.
- Autos (the smaller green and yellow ones), made to fit 3, can also be shared, in which case they can fit 6 or more.
- Rickshaws, the cycling ones, made to fit 2, can fit up to 4 or 5 I think (with kids) if the driver's up to it and / or it goes downhill. They are very slow and usually are responsible for a big part of the traffic. Some can carry goods as well (on the right).