Kolkata is everything you love about India. Let me count the ways :

-- The tiny shops. A darning shop here, a little bookseller's there; to one side a place offering mouth-watering sweets, to another a hole-in-the-wall travel agent's; evening ironing stalls; fruit stalls; tea stalls; tailors; medicine shops; photocopy shops; fabric shops...

-- Delicious food by the side of the road, for just a few rupees (small, round, piping hot flat breads, with seemingly unlimited top-ups of split peas; puri pani, which are tiny spherical shells stuffed with spicy potato and rounded off with a teeny scoop of tamarind water; kati rolls, which come in different guises, including the egg-reinforced flat breads that we had, rolled around onions and spicy sauce; bhel puri, which is a mix of crunchy stuff, raw onion, potato, a spicy sauce, and a tangy sauce; cardamom-infused milky tea in tiny clay cups...)



-- Equally interesting stuff from the slightly more sophisticated outlets (delectable rounds of kulfi, cut into wedges for your ambulatory convenience; luscious gulab jamun to take home to eat with your Tetleys; sweet curd and ras gullah; momos, which seem all the rage here these days, fried up and served with coriander sauce and chilli sauce; oh-so-tasty rice and vege dishes from Kasturi's...)

-- Trees with shrines. Trees with built-in stalls.

-- Venerable buildings becoming ever more organic in their advancing years.

-- Chaotic picturesque-ness everywhere.





-- So many Ambassador taxis. Tuktuks. One or two pedicabs. And pulled rickshaws. I've never seen them anywhere before.

-- The constant parade of beautifully dressed Indian women, in saris and shalwar kameez, whose colour, drape, and cut seem to vary infinitely.

-- Indian art and history, very effectively on display at the Indian Museum. This is expensive (500 rupees for foreigners, 20 rupees for locals). But there's a lot that's really worth seeing. Terracotta. Awesome statuary. Mughal miniatures. Bengali art, where the names Tagore and Bose are very apparent. On the road alongside the museum there were rows of stalls selling clothes, yet more Santa hats, books (Mein Kampf was particularly evident, as was stuff by Paulo Coelho and Dan Brown).









-- Relics of empire. The historic, tranquil, poignant South Park Street cemetery, for example. Or the Victoria Memorial -- an imposing, beautifully situated, but ultimately tragic monument to the futility of imperialism.











-- The river and the flower market. A riot of life and colour.













-- The soundscape. Every morning I wake to the slow, rhythmic chant of the crows: "Crows want more. More. More." Then the dogs join in. Then it's the hubbub of voices. And finally the beeping of traffic. In the evening, we get pulsating Bollywood music from the youth place across the street. In our corner room, jutting out into the street, it feels like we're in the middle of a prolonged movie song-and-dance routine. We are half expecting Shah Rukh Khan to appear on our balcony.

But, more uniquely, Kolkata is also big on Christmas. In fact, it's a wonderful place to do Christmas.

-- Park Street. In the daytime it's the acme of slightly old-fashioned retail grandeur; in the evenings, at Christmas, it's the party street, with lights galore, ubiquitous purveyors of Santa hats and other seasonal regalia, queues spilling out of the doors of the famous eating establishments like Flury's and Mocambo, and joyfully cruising crowds.



-- Christmas installations. Whether it's saxophone-playing Santas or nativity scenes, there are lots of them, and lots of people who want to photograph them.

-- Christmas services. You can do one of the famous midnight masses. Or, as we did, you can attend the homely little service in the historic Sudder Street Wesleyan Methodist Church, its butter-yellow walls and glossy white front niche setting off the Christmas flowers and foliage and the rich colours of the attendees' festive clothing.

-- St Paul's. We visited on Boxing Day, and it was just delightful to sit in this tranquil place, listening to a pianist and two vocalists practising some Christmas music. In the foyer you can read the memorial plaques, and listen to the whir and coo of the pigeons. Outside you can admire the impressive nativity scene, smile at the hooning parrots, and circumambulate the photogenic towers.







-- Christmas baking. From Nahoum's, the famous New Market Jewish baker, to the city's other bakeries, known and unknown, Christmas sweetness is available in profusion.

-- The park. Don't even attempt it on Christmas Day. It's awash with people. Really. Standing room only. But on Boxing Day, when most people are back at work, it's nice to walk beside and then through the wide green space, watching the trams, and the knots of young men playing cricket, and the goat-herders, and the guys starting to sort through the post-Christmas litter.





Warm memories... And so much more still to do next time.