Sadly, it was not to be. Instead we traveled almost exclusively by car. Meheli's parents are getting older and try not to travel by train anymore. Apparently the travel itself is not a problem, rather they find the train stations more and more difficult to manage, particularly with luggage. Additionally, a new and improved highway was built since I was last there, so getting to Kharagpur is actually a little faster by car. Ma and Babba do not own a car, though they do own a scooter. Babba takes the scooter out most days when he heads to the Tech Market (just outside the IIT campus). He will take it out several times in a day to the same market either to buy fresh fish, fruits or just hang out with friends. Since we could not all fit on his scooter, they rented a car. A Tata Sumo. Tata is the brand and Sumo is the make. Tata is actually a large corporation in India. They are involved in such things as steel to car manufacturing to cell phones. A Tata Sumo is one of the largest domestic cars on the road in India. I think the closest approximation to cars found in the U.S. might be a Jeep Compass or one of those dreadful looking Honda Elements. Large-ish, but not honkin' huge. One of the main differences between a Sumo and well, any car found in the U.S. is that in the trunk area there are two bench seats that sit parallel to the side. This allows for more people in the vehicle—it can fit rough 10 people, provided they are all willing to squeeze in next to one another. On the way back to Kolkata from Kharagpur there were actually 8 people, plus their luggage squeezed into the vehicle. It was a tight fit, but the drive only took roughly 2 ½ hours.

When you hire a car, you also hire its driver. Boo bhai was the driver of the Tata Sumo. Bhai, incidentally is brother is Bengali so presumably his name is actually Boo (or possibly Bhu), but in either case is kind of funny and I silently giggled several times. While he drove us to and from Kharagpur, we hired yet another car and driver in Kolkata when we visited various family and friends. I don't remember his name, but do remember that his car—an Ambassador—either did not have a first gear or the driver was determined to prove he could drive without it. Ambassador is apparently the first car manufactured in India after gaining independence (I've found the dates 1948 and 1957 for first manufacturing dates). They've become rather ubiquitous on the roads in India and in Kolkata, at least, the majority of taxis are Ambassadors. They're rather squat looking, but somewhat charming. Most taxis and some family cars too have individual touches—largely centered on the dashboard. A small statue of a god or goddess can often be found on the dashboard, usually surrounded by a garland of either marigolds or jasmine. These statues are often in plastic cases, many of which have tiny flashing lights. At stop lights, I would either be peering out at the shops and people walking by or at various cars to see how they were decorated.

Driving in India is hard to describe. It's incredibly chaotic and there are seemingly no rules—or at least none that I could discern. Generally larger vehicles have the right of way. Smaller cars will make way for buses and trucks for instance. But not always. I don't remember seeing one stop sign in India, though some of the busier intersections have both stop lights and traffic police officers directing traffic. When entering a busy street from a side road, the driver generally pauses as it makes its way. While on the newer and busier streets, there are designated lanes, these are ignored. For example on a four lane street in Kolkata, it's extremely likely that there will be two additional lanes of traffic in each direction. On the smaller streets off from the busier streets, cars manage to pass one another in what seem to be one lane streets—and this is with pedestrians, bicyclists and animals weaving in and out. In addition to being chaotic, driving in India is also incredibly noisy. Honking is not only permitted, but encouraged. Truly. On the backs of most buses or trucks they have "Honk Please," "Horn Please," and "Blow Horn" painted on the rear of them. The cacophony was oftentimes overwhelming for me. However, the use of the horn was interesting at times, particularly with Boo bhai. On the drive to and from Kharagpur, he would usually give two or three quick honks when he approached a vehicle he wanted to pass. Normally at this time, the other vehicle would move over to the left lane (as with the U.K. and I would imagine many of its former colonies, the drivers sit on the right side of the car and drive on the left side of the road). As he started to pass the other vehicle, Boo bhai would sound the car horn two or three short beeps again and yet again when we had almost passed the car. And a final time after passing the vehicle. That's a lot of tooting of the car horn.

In Kolkata we continued to travel primarily by car. We stayed with Leena Masi, a college friend of Ma's, who has a fabulous apartment in Kolkata. She has a car and driver on retainer you might say. He drives for a few other customers, but we managed to arrange for him to drive us around for 2 of the 4 days we were there. Including the day we went to the Victoria Memorial (or Vickie's Memorial as I started calling it last trip). Because Meheli has a friend who knows someone who knows someone we were able to get a tour guide around the Memorial and even allowed to venture upstairs where I took some fabulous photos (photography isn't allowed inside the Memorial) as well as drive right up to the Memorial which filled me with a certain mix of glee and embarassment.

The rest of our visit in Kolkata was busily occupied by shopping, and visiting family and friends who could not make it to the reception. One of these was the mother of a close friend of Meheli's. While we took a taxi all the way to her house, since it was a distance from the main road, we took a bicycle rickshaw back to the taxi stand. Typically, bicycle rickshaws operate in such a manner—they service the areas furthest from the main roads by taking people to and from the busier areas. Auto rickshaws are more likely to be found on these busier areas. There are still rickshaws pulled by men, though they typically pull goods rather than people (though not always) and they can be found both in the quieter and busier areas. I've never felt particularly comfortable riding in a bicycle rickshaw. We took them fairly frequently on my last visit—again to get from the house where we were staying to the closest taxi stand—but I always feel so sorry for the bicyclist (though at the same time highly impressed with their stamina and musculature). I learned to both my bafflement and amusement that I was well regarded around the neighborhood we were staying in last time because I was so polite and kind to the bicycle rickshaws. There was a bit of confusion and unfortunately Philip and I rode in the same bicycle rickshaw. Philip is rather tall (over 6') and one of the reasons Ma and Babba had decided to hire the Tata Sumo was so that he would fit a little more comfortably as most of the cars, including the Ambassadors, are smaller (in one of the taxis we took, he actually had to crane his head to one side because he couldn't fit otherwise). Anyway, our poor rickshaw bicyclist managed with little straining to get us to the taxi stand where we transferred to yet another Ambassador taxi.

Before this, I was beginning to feel sorry for Philip. It was his first trip to India but he had only experienced India by car. However, as he pointed out when I brought this up, since they are planning on getting an apartment—likely in Kolkata—as a kind of second home, he will have many more chances to travel by train and the various kinds of rickshaws available.

While I enjoyed the scuttling to and fro the various destinations (guilt over the bicycle rickshaw aside), it still would have been lovely to take a train ride. Oh well, next time.