At 8am a group of us met our guide, Ifte from Calcutta Walks, who took us on their walk called the "Confluence of Cultures". Over the next 3.5 hours, we went from a Buddhist Temple, the Anglo-Indian part of Kolkata, a Muslim Mosque, a Jain Temple, a Hindu Temple, and a Jewish Synagogue. The photos above were a couple of the sites and people I saw while wandering through the streets.
Kolkata is a city of many different peoples. We wandered through tight passages through local markets, saw Chinatown, spoke with a couple of curious Burmese tourists, and got to see parts of local neighborhoods that I've never seen before.
When we stopped at Armenian church, which dates back to the 1600s, a lady stopped to speak with the group. She said that at one point there were more than 10,000 Aremenian families in Kolkata, but now there are about 58 and Aremenians from outside the city and country are recruited to come to the school. Even with dwindling numbers, the community keeps the language and culture alive through the church and school they run.
Ending our walk at a small neighborhood mosque, we stopped to sit and rest for a minute, and a local man stopped to tell us a little about his religion. After a short exchange with the group, he came up to my friend and me and asked me how old I was, if I was married, and why not. There are some things that are the same anywhere here as those are the three most common questions I get in India. :)
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