A lazy (every)day in Calcutta

(Disclaimer: I don't mean to call the people of the city slothful, it's just the city.)
It didn't take me long to fall in love with Cal! Let me make a confession, I'm weirdly attracted to chaos. I developed an instant liking for the mess that it was. You'd be thinking I would love Patna too, but that's a repulsive mess (no offense to friends from Bihar). Kolkata with its Victorian touch, photogenic streets, history, culture and food, quaffs you. The weary old city epitomizes 'laze' as my Bengali friend puts it. Kolkata and its Park Street has been the same even three decades ago. They just chose to let it be when Delhi and Mumbai decided on a makeover, he says. But that's why Kolkata offers a time travel into the past - bright yellow Ambassador taxis (they run just fine), trams and rickshaw pullers - details missing from other Indian cities today.

The legendary yellow Ambassadors with a splash of red.

Quoting a friend who lives in the city, "If you're in no particular hurry to reach home after work, take the tram; that's the only thing slower than a walk".

A spread of Kachori, jalebi and kulhad chai for breakfast.

Taking a break over Hooghly.

Goods move from Kolkata to Howrah across the Hooghly.

Labourers carrying goods across the river was one of the most common sights on the Howrah bridge.

Streets of Kolkata dotted with nearly century-old houses.

Bookstores on College Street.

The College Street Coffee House opposite Presidency College where Satyajit Ray and Amartya Sen were regulars.

Kolkata tries an Abbey Road but it has to be in disarray when it's in Cal.

Taking a ferry across the Hooghly in 1985. I bet it would look the same in 2030.