Day 3 continued in North Kolkata…
At 4 pm, we reached the Bagbazar pandal (about 500 meters from Kumartuli) – the organization creating pandals here has been doing it for decades – it is one of the oldest in the city. There was a carnival outside on the ground with plenty of stalls and a giant wheel – the setting seemed like a larger version of the Maddox park. The pandal over here wasn’t as grand as some of the others we had seen – it was a simpler traditional one, but I guess due to its history, it drew a lot of visitors.
At 4:30 pm, we entered the Sovabazar Rajbari (Shobhabazar Royal Palace) pandal, a walkable distance from Bagbazar. These pandals were packed, but you could still enter after waiting a few minutes, and the crowd kept moving constantly; so it wasn’t as bad as the Kumartuli one where the crowd tended to stagnate for a while. This pandal in North Kolkata also has a legacy – it is in an old palace built in the 1700s, which has celebrated Durga Puja for centuries. You land in an open courtyard in the centre with rooms around it.
The intensity of rain varied from time to time – we took shelter under buildings when the intensity picked up, and whenever there was a letup, we would continue walking since we didn’t bring umbrellas. Walking would take a lot of time in this weather and with this crowd, so we tried to hop into empty autos as they passed. One of the auto drivers agreed to let us hop in but said he would drop us off on the main road. He kept his word and dropped us near the metro station at 5:15 pm. We searched for Ubers but to no avail; we thought we’d check out the metro, but the station itself was overflowing – we could have waited inside, but our only exit option was via a cab. Since Ubers were ruled out, Deb said we could try the local taxi. But for that, we’d have to flag one down on the main road – a part of the road was barricaded to prevent pedestrians from creating traffic problems. But that also meant that to stop a taxi, we’d have to somehow catch the attention of the driver, who would be a lane away from us. We positioned ourselves at the station’s entrance, but because of the rain, many people took shelter inside, and it reached a point where we could barely keep our heads in the building!
Each time Deb saw an Ambassador taxi, he would step out near the barricade and frantically wave his hand, but most of the cabs were unfortunately already occupied. We learnt from him and tried the same. After many attempts, we finally managed to get one.
We reached Peter Cat restaurant at about 6 pm. You’d think that’s fairly early, but since it was the festival holidays, even at this hour, we had to wait for a few minutes to get a table! But it wasn’t bad since at night it is close to impossible to get a table here without a long wait. They have a fairly narrow entrance, but it was surprising to see the amount of real estate they had for such a small entrance – they had an upper floor as well; so there were a lot of tables, but all were occupied.
The lighting was dim with a red hue, just enough to see each other, but on each table, they did have a light on top – so you could clearly see what you were eating! Deb and Kshitij had recommended this place – their signature dish is the Chelo kebab, which we ordered along with a couple of sizzlers.
Deb said, “They are famous for this, and I always have sizzlers when I come here.”
The quick service certainly helps their business because they always have people waiting to get in. We were there for probably 45 minutes or so – and all the dishes were really good. Definitely worth the visit, and like Deb said, “After having the sizzlers here, you may not enjoy sizzlers in other places as much!”
I later learnt that Peter Cat is a forty-year-old restaurant, and they’ve maintained their reputation and standard of food across decades.