http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65YUe2PJTAQ
Weird things to do in Calcutta on a Saturday afternoon included ice skating at the Birla Ice Rink - always very welcome in the hot weather even if all we did was go round the edge as the ice gave up the ghost against the humidity and we slushed through puddles. The best one though was a trip to the zoo.
Calcutta Zoo was a place of wonder for a child and guilty pleasure for an adult. It was always a bit smelly and some of the monkeys were definitely motheaten but there were bears and white tigers and huge gentle elephants who would delicately and tenderly relieve you of a monkey nut with their trunk.
I have to be honest though - the zoo was the only place you could get candy floss and for me that was best part of the whole experience - to be covered in sticky pink sugar and watch the monkeys as they moved through their enclosure and also held their hands out for the monkey nuts, which they took, not as gently as the elephants, but with an urgency that implied this would be the best nut ever.
The white tigers had been a gift from Russia and they were very rare. When I was a little baba they were exciting and beautiful - as I got older they were still beautiful but now clearly suffering in the heat and humidity of a Bengal far from their higher altitude homelands. I have a strange ambivalence about zoos - I love them and hate them in equal parts. The child still within me loves to see the animals and marvel at the behaviour - the adult finds it hard to reconcile captivity for human entertainment as being in any way acceptable. My friend Blue Wright works tirelessly to save the tiger in its natural habitat and she more than anyone else made me realise the sadness of the zoo - that for many species it may be their only way to survive. We need better zoos but, more importantly, we need better wildlife laws and protection.
I got my love of giant turtles from seeing my mother rescue them and send them back out to sea in Puri and the zoo always saddened me when I saw them so far from warm sand and the blue sea that is their natural element. I always avoided the reptile house - far too many snakes and the glass never looked strong enough.
It was a splendid Saturday afternoon and Alipore was lucky to have the zoo but I do hope those tigers have airconditioning now although I doubt it. It has a charmed memory for me as a place of exploration and gaining knowledge and that golden glow that happy childhood days always seem to acquire.
Weird things to do in Calcutta on a Saturday afternoon included ice skating at the Birla Ice Rink - always very welcome in the hot weather even if all we did was go round the edge as the ice gave up the ghost against the humidity and we slushed through puddles. The best one though was a trip to the zoo.
Calcutta Zoo was a place of wonder for a child and guilty pleasure for an adult. It was always a bit smelly and some of the monkeys were definitely motheaten but there were bears and white tigers and huge gentle elephants who would delicately and tenderly relieve you of a monkey nut with their trunk.
I have to be honest though - the zoo was the only place you could get candy floss and for me that was best part of the whole experience - to be covered in sticky pink sugar and watch the monkeys as they moved through their enclosure and also held their hands out for the monkey nuts, which they took, not as gently as the elephants, but with an urgency that implied this would be the best nut ever.
The white tigers had been a gift from Russia and they were very rare. When I was a little baba they were exciting and beautiful - as I got older they were still beautiful but now clearly suffering in the heat and humidity of a Bengal far from their higher altitude homelands. I have a strange ambivalence about zoos - I love them and hate them in equal parts. The child still within me loves to see the animals and marvel at the behaviour - the adult finds it hard to reconcile captivity for human entertainment as being in any way acceptable. My friend Blue Wright works tirelessly to save the tiger in its natural habitat and she more than anyone else made me realise the sadness of the zoo - that for many species it may be their only way to survive. We need better zoos but, more importantly, we need better wildlife laws and protection.
I got my love of giant turtles from seeing my mother rescue them and send them back out to sea in Puri and the zoo always saddened me when I saw them so far from warm sand and the blue sea that is their natural element. I always avoided the reptile house - far too many snakes and the glass never looked strong enough.
It was a splendid Saturday afternoon and Alipore was lucky to have the zoo but I do hope those tigers have airconditioning now although I doubt it. It has a charmed memory for me as a place of exploration and gaining knowledge and that golden glow that happy childhood days always seem to acquire.
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