I really do not know what connection I have with this city. No other place has been able to bring me as much joy as Kolkata. I was only about 13 months old when I first set foot in this city, in this life. The next 3.5 years were absolute joy for me because Kolkata became my home! It didn’t stop there, once I moved back to Bangalore from Kolkata, the stories continued for many-many years while I grew up. You can’t seem to find anything to complain about Kolkata (unless of course you’ve lived there for a decent amount of time and not just transiting or visiting). This city can make anyone an optimist.
I have always accepted the chance of visiting this city of joy at the first instance! I have even travelled without parents or family by train and stayed with a close family friend for 15 good days when I was a very young child. Have been fortunate to visit Kolkata several times during my growing up years too. It kind of became a go-to place especially when stress levels increased and the body-mind needed some pure joy!
The years from mid-2023 to the summer of 2025 have been totally chaotic, crazy and some first time scary experiences for me. I have experienced extreme good, bad and ugly in this short time. My 5 year old son was looking forward to his summer holidays for quite some months, unaware to him that this summer he was to be totally occupied with his Upanayana preparations, the function itself and all the post Upanayana learnings. All of this kept him super busy and distracted to notice how quickly his summer holidays were coming to an end.
One fine day, I had to go to the airport to drop off some relatives who had come to Bangalore to attend my son’s Upanayana. My son came along to the airport. On our way back, it was just me and him in the car. He found his time and chance to make some random demands, he first pointed towards a shop outside the terminal building and asked me to take him in, I intelligently replied back saying that entry was only for those who had an air ticket with them! Just when I thought I had won and also saved a few thousand rupees, he immediately noticed how long it had been since his last air travel and that his summer holidays were also coming to an end and that our family had already cancelled 2 particular trips, one to Rameswaram and another to Vijayawada. His memory at its best, bringing to surface all the deeply hidden travel promises and planned tours cancellations! I somehow managed to calm him down and we reached home. But the thought struck to me, being the travel lover that I have always been. I knew this would probably be his only chance to go on a proper vacation since once school begins, it’ll become ultra quick short distance trips only. My wife was not at all in a position to even bring up the topic of asking for leave at her workplace. I didn’t want to go anywhere nearby over the weekend, we have done that more than enough number of times. Similar to my son’s memory at the airport, it was time for me to dig up some memory from the last 2 years and it was totally stressful. I then found some connection; stress->holiday->new place for my son->joy for both=Kolkata. My son loves train and train-journey more than airplanes, so I thought it would be perfect to use both modes of travel, one while going and another while returning. I quickly made my plan, just me and my 5 year old son, but felt a strong need to have someone else too, so that when I use the washroom, etc. there is another person watching over him. My wife couldn’t come, I didn’t want any other elder from the family on this trip, the only option left was to try asking my son’s cousins. I asked two of my son’s cousins, to my surprise, both his cousins’ parents quickly agreed even though this was the first time such a trip was being planned and so far away from Bangalore too. Two other young kids aged 9 and 11 with my son and just me looking after them. This seemed like an adventure of a lifetime!
We quickly booked the tickets and we were ready to fly to Kolkata, the city of joy, with a stopover in Bhubaneswar. The entire family came to drop us off at the airport. None of those kids had ever gone on a holiday without their parents and certainly not so far away and not even on a week long trip! It was a first of so many kinds for everyone. Nor had I ever had the experience of taking along young children on such multi-day holidays. We were all super excited when we said our goodbyes and walked inside the terminal with plenty of hours to spare before our flight. The newly operational T2 at Bangalore has great views of the tarmac and even of the landing or take-offs depending on the wind. We sat down at what we thought was the perfect view and my son enjoyed the non stop movements of flights while he paid attention to every single visible procedure of arriving and departing airplanes. Time flew by and we boarded our first flight to Bhubaneshwar. After having flown so many times in so many aircraft and airlines, I can say that this one take-off was the most adrenaline filled one! The excitement, the nervousness, the feeling of going back to the city which raised me, the feeling of taking my son and walking the path holding his hand where I once walked holding my father’s hands, all these thoughts created such mixed emotions and made me feel this take-off to be like my first ever flight in life! There was continuous turbulence enroute till we reached the eastern coast, Vishakhpatnam. My son enjoyed the feeling in his tummy and at certain times even felt a little scared for a few seconds before shifting back to enjoying!
We landed in Bhubaneswar post lunch time and we had a good 3 plus hours for our next flight to Kolkata. I surprised the kids by taking them out of the airport and then hiring an auto rickshaw to visit the famous Lingaraja Temple. I personally felt that such a pure, spiritual and divine start of our vacation is a blessing that everything will go smoothly and each one of us will go back happier! We roamed around in the large premises, saw many ancient smaller shrines too within the complex and finally made way for the airport after taking some nice pictures! Our flight to Kolkata was delayed by about 40 mins and post landing we saw a big idli store inside the terminal. It was dinner time anyway and since the kids were hungry, we ate there despite the high prices, which satisfied our hunger. We then took a taxi to our accommodation, the guest house inside the Belur Math campus. We got a very early first hand experience on why Kolkata is called the City of Joy! We had booked an Ola from the Airport to Belur Math. The Math’s approach road was locked / closed since it was 11 in the night. Our driver pointed that this is the destination and we’ll have to walk a short distance to the main entrance of the Math since the road was closed for the day. As soon as we got out of the taxi with our luggage, an older person came on the bike from the other side of the locked road and spoke to our driver in Bengali. He then asked us whether we are here for the guest house and we confirmed the name of the guest house. Then this person firmly instructed the driver to take us and drop us off at the guest house and not to carelessly leave us in the middle of the road especially when there are 3 young children. Our driver politely mentioned that he did not know there is another road once this main approach road is closed and also said he doesn’t know where exactly our guest house is located within the huge Belur Math area. The man guided our driver and insisted that he drop us off right at our destination and our driver politely obliged. We were finally dropped off right in front of our guest house and our driver requested for some tips and welcomed any amount without demanding a particular sum, very unlike many other cities in India and especially very unlike Bangalore. The joy began!
It was a very early start every morning for all the young boys. A good place to cultivate discipline of waking up early and have breakfast at same time each day. Of course, my son was the first among the boys to wake up and complete his bath and by the time he finished his morning Sandhyavandana just around sunrise, the other two boys would speed up, race and get ready to be at the breakfast table at the Belur Math guest house by 6:25 am. We would then take the ferry towards Dakshineswar and then after spending some time in the temple complex, would head onwards to visit the amazing city to experience joy at every hour, place and by people! We really did not have a set itinerary, it was all on-the-spot decisions and enjoyed our pace which worked for all the children. We visited some museums which are one of the best in the country, had delicious sweets and literally glasses of Nimbu Pani and Nimbu Soda so frequently. The weather demanded us to re-hydrate so frequently.
The walk from one end to the other on the Howrah bridge was such a memorable experience and a first time in life experience for all the boys. My son was so astonished and pleasantly surprised to find that there was no support to the bridge at the bottom. He jumped with joy when he experienced the feeling of shaking and vibration from the bridge and with the view of the river flowing below, it only added to his adventure! Sometimes, you really must use your creative imagination to understand how a child really feels for all the firsts in their lives. Just looking at their expressions won’t do much justice unless you delve deeply and bring your imagination to the surface to better understand what the child thinks, feels, etc. It is just magical, pure joy!
Long, hot, sweaty days with a lot of walking would prepare the boys to have sufficient dinner when served at the Belur Math guest house and then head straight to bed for a deep and satisfying sleep, with unknown dreams full of curiosity for what lies ahead the next day! The boys enjoyed the river bath so much, they literally didn’t want to come out of the water even after an hour had passed. None of them had seen such an amazing ghat for a bath, such clean ghat, steps at the ghat so wide and non slippy, the water so fresh, clean, pure and holy, the early morning calmness before the sun added his power of hotness, the lovely view of Belur Math, the views of the 3 trees that stands from the times of Swami Vivekananda, everything contributed to make the moment magical and unknowingly deeply spiritual for the boys. They will not realise what they have earned by spending that time, at that place and doing whatever good they were doing, not until they grow up and realise that they need some amount of spirituality in their lives. For now, they all came out feeling internally cleansed of all their mistakes and full of purity, energy and unmeasurable happiness.
I made the children notice how every stranger looked so happy, how every road in town was so clean, how our food was always delicious and how each one of our yellow coloured ambassador taxi driver was genuinely friendly, helpful and charged us what was only reasonable. These were the things I ensured that the boys notice, we acknowledge and give credit to people wherever it is due. We had plenty of such opportunities throughout the day while we were on the roads, in metro trains, in the local trains and other public places. In fact, on a very crowded local train ride when my son started expressing his displeasure of not being able to look out of the window or the door, a kind person who had reserved his place right at the door made sure my son gets a good view and also ensured his safety. We had roamed almost the entire tourist spots in the city and also went to a few neighbourhoods to get a feel of the residential areas too. We really did everything that we intended to do, see and experience in Kolkata except for one thing which remained incomplete. We couldn’t take a ride on the famous tram, it had stopped on most routes and was operational only on one particular route with no fixed timings. We however got to see the tram on the road from inside of a taxi. The boys settled for that but I felt what I missed the strongest among all.
Our last day in the city was welcomed by the rains too and all of us got drenched in the Kolkata rains. It felt like the city didn’t want us to leave so soon, at least this is what I thought as we reached the airport several hours early only to find out much later that our flight got delayed. Inside the airport premises, the flight getting delayed past midnight, there was nothing much I could do to keep the boys engaged, positive or optimistic. That was probably the first and only time I could feel they just wanted to reach home and meet their elders! I just made a promise to the city of joy that I would come back again sometime and requested the city to be kind to me and fill me up with joy another time, every time! With lots of happy memories and having successfully completed a huge responsibility of taking along 3 young kids with me to such a far away place, we landed back home in Bangalore just around sunrise! The joy and memory remains!