Another Indian museum and the Kalighat Temple...

The Indian Museum on Chowringhee Road is SUCH a mish mash of things from here and there with no particular focus on India itself that I had to laugh as we lunged for the Egyptian Room solely because of its air conditioning!  There were Zoology Rooms with old carcasses of all sorts of animals, there was a Birds Room that had birds of South America, there were old, washed-out paintings of the Tagore clan once again, and finally all the prehistoric fossils and then statuary, of which only these two struck my fancy.  Who can resist a dancing Ganesh?

 Then, we took the metro over the Kalighat Temple, about which Afroja hesitated, and justifiably so because it was a tawdry neighborhood, the temple was filthy, and the carryings-on were nothing but ritualistic, children wearing brass helments and wigs, and men hanging their arms through dangling red sashes.  Bizarre.  The ONLY thing we missed was a sacrificial goad, but because we were forbidden to photograph I couldn't even take away the image of the place where they lacerate and kill the goats...  Oh well, it is all best put behind me.

The woman below was on her balcony, and I looked up and asked if I could take her picture; she acquiesced and then kindly threw herself into a kind of pose.  We grinned, waved and thumbs upped each other, and off I went.

 How about hanging your sari out to dry, and it goes down to the next floor?  This is a tough job when you live in an apartment...

 I am a door lover, a lock lover and a mailbox lover, and these were my targets today as we walked.

 These little fellows were having such fun in the water, lathering soap all over themselves and squealing as they splashed under the water pump.

This is the actual top of the Kalighat Temple, and below is a young man selling geegaws for the temple; note the warning sign.  The rest of the photos are doors, doors, doors, but they capture some of the spirit of South Kolcata through my very astigmatism-riddled eyes.