Old memories #1
Calcutta Zoo (Written in February 2016, Dilli Neupane)
Eighteen of us who just crossed eighteen went to India for a
so called “Holiday Trip” to India from Nepal over the winter break during our
golden years of college. Though the trip lacked most of the basic perks of a
holiday trip per today’s standards of an international travel, the (physical,
social, emotional and financial) memories of that trip can be an entire volume
of its own.
The first major stop of that four week long trip was
Calcutta or Kolkata. I think it was still called Calcutta back then, in 1996. We
were excited, confused, amused and disappointed at the same time. Went to
Calcutta Zoo on the second day, if I remember correctly. Most of the other
stuff was not too interesting except from the white tiger that I had neither
heard of, nor seen before, not even in pictures. Well, I knew of a historical
novel titled “white tiger” in Nepali, but that was symbolic, the tigers in the
zoo were real, not that I believed it existed. There was a separate entrance
fee in addition to the zoo entrance fee to see the white tigers. Though each of
us had an average of not more than a few thousand indian rupees (a few hundred US$)
in our pockets for the rest of the trip, we thought it was worth
a try. The tigers were no different than regular tigers except the white color
instead of regular golden color, it was enough to prove the point that we saw
the white tigers! I am pretty sure photography was not allowed, which was the
same case at Howra Bridge, the ninth wonder of the world, the eighth wonder being
us wondering why the heck it was not allowed in the first place!
Well, sorry for the distraction, then we came out of the
secured zone where the white tigers were kept, then stopped for a moment, took out
the only one camera with the roll that we had, no digital cams existed in the (local) market that time, and
posed for a picture in front of statues of three life-size giraffes, yes, life
size giraffes until the poor fellow had hard time framing the giraffes in
background because they had started moving by then! Realized we had not seen
real giraffes before, and did not know how slow they move.
Came out of the zoo before 5 PM, then posted a group update
stating “saw white tigers and giraffes in Calcutta zoo” this time not via
Facebook but via local Meghdoot post card that cost me 3.5 paise (0.07cents)! The card was
sent to one of our classmates who was still in Kathmandu, just to tease him! No
wonder “social media” has only amplified human instincts to show off and tease,
which do not change much. The recipient never acknowledged that he got our post
cards, well, actually I never asked, or some of those “status update” post
cards might have been lost, slipped between train transfers in India and never
got to Nepal.
(To one of my friends on that group who still has all those pictures in print: Can you post those pictures for goodness sake? Remember we had this discussion before, keyword #memory?)
