India is a regular destination for my travels. Sometimes, I feel like I visited this country more than I ever stepped foot into the house my father painstakingly built in Savar, Dhaka. This 2023, I found myself coming back here once more, probably not for the last time, either.
I acquired a three month, single entry visa to visit India as I planned on watching all the matches played by Bangladesh in the ICC World Cup 2023. I was set to go to Kolkata on October 26th, but following the team’s crushing defeat to the South African cricket team and the overall performance in the tournament, I decided to cancel my airline reservations. My plans of watching the Bangladesh cricket team play in the World Cup was going to have to wait.
My visa expires on January 4th, 2024. Thanks to my heavily congested academic schedule, however, I didn’t get the chance to make use of my visa up until the last week of 2023.
Once you have an Indian visa, you must pass through the Indian immigration at least once before your validity expires. Otherwise, the process of acquiring a visa once you apply some other time becomes a little more complicated. To avoid this problem, I decided to take a day trip to India, just to get that immigration stamp.
I turned 24 this November 14th. Almost like a birthday gift from the universe, an opportunity to visit India arose. There’s a society in my university known as “Formula IUT” that work on race cars, and a component for their project was delivered to Kolkata from Uttarkhad around this time. This package had to be picked up in person, and they were having difficulties finding someone with a valid Visa.
Under these circumstances, they shared a post in the Facebook group of our university’s current students that they intended on sponsoring whoever would volunteer to pick up the package. This worked out well for me, and when I contacted them, they arranged a bus ticket from Abdullapur to Kolkata that very evening.
As a person who travels a lot, I always have a bag packed ahead of time. All my necessities for the trip were already packed, and some other arrangements such as travel tax token, NOC (No Objection Certificate), and acquiring the parcel invoice had to be made. I gathered an Indian SIM card from a friend, and set off. I left IUT just after 10 PM, as my bus was set to depart at 11.
The bus first made several stops in Dhaka, and around 12.30, it finally left the city behind. I dozed off up until the brief stop at Faridpur, where I decided to get some dinner before coming back and falling asleep once more. When I woke up the next morning, we were already at the Green Line counter close to Benapole Land Port.
At the bus counter, I charged both of my phones. Back in January of 2023, I made my first visit to India via the port. I found out then that his harbor is almost always congested, especially during the Puja festivities. To avoid using this port again. I was scheduled to return the very next day by air.
I exchanged some Bangladeshi Taka for Indian Rupee, but I wasn’t too worried about cash since I had my debit cards on me. I switched my SIM card to an Indian one, and updated Formula IUT on my whereabouts before having my passport stamped by immigration.
The bus on the Indian side of the border left for Kolkata around 11.30. There was a lot of traffic, and I decided to go to sleep once again. I woke up around 1.30 when the bus made a stop for lunch, and I got something to eat at a local Indian Dhaba. I realized I’d need to visit an ATM if I didn’t want my cash to run out.
I slept through the remainder of the journey, until 4PM when we finally arrived at Marcus Street in Kolkata. I tried looking for a sandwich shop I found on my last visit, but as I didn’t remember the exact address, I was unsuccessful. I scoped out some hotels before heading to the ATM to get more cash.
Now comes the most suspenseful part of my trip. I had only 200 Indian rupees left in my wallet, but as luck would have it, my cards were proving to be of no use. They were working just fine on my last trip, but for some reason, every time I tried a booth, I kept receiving the same message- Transaction Failed. Since it was getting dark, I decided to go fetch the package I came for from Malang Lane.
I took the subway to get there, and looked up my closest ATM on Google Maps. But the same thing happened again. I tried contacting a senior I was acquainted with about my predicament as he worked for AB Bank, but he informed me that office hours were over and he couldn’t help. I tried to contact EBL, which proved futile as well.
Despite being alone in a different country with nowhere to go, I never gave up hope, keeping my faith in Allah (SWT) firm. I showed the courier company the parcel invoice, and it was confirmed that they received the package. I had to pay INR 1450 to pick it up, however, I didn’t have that money on me. So I called Farhan Orka, a member of Formula IUT, to let him know about his predicament. He told me that he could handle the payment via “PhonePe,” a well-known MFS in India. But the man working at the counter informed me that they didn’t accept money via PhonePe.
I found myself back on the street, helpless, penniless, and without so much of a hotel reservation for the night. While it was intimidating, I now look back on it as an interesting experience, and a lesson on what not to do. I tried my contacts, my friend Rokon, Debjani Didi, a woman I met in Nepal while paragliding. She was eager to help me, but as she was in Delhi, she couldn’t arrange for the money to be sent to Kolkata on such short notice.
Finally, by a stroke of luck, I discovered that I had €100 in one corner of my wallet, which I had snatched from my friend Shantanu at some point in time. Who knew this would come to be my savior on a random night in Kolkata?
From google maps, I found a money exchange shop about 1.5 kilometers away. I moved as fast as I could, exchanged the euro for INR, returned to pick up the parcel, and took a taxi to Sudder Street in New Market. I found a motel to spend the night, which was the same one I stayed at on my last trip.
I took a hot shower and dozed off for a few minutes before heading out to eat. I was familiar with the New Market region, a busy, vibrant place in the middle of festivities. I grabbed a Mutton Cheese Burger at a Burger King in the center of New Market. This time around, however, the POS terminal accepted both my cards. I decided that if I buy things from Supershops, I can pay via my cards and spend very little of my cash.
After finishing my meal, I headed to the Titan showroom to buy a wall clock for my house, and also got a charging cord because I forgot my iPhone charger at home. I got a tube of Moov pain relieving gel and a bottle of nasal spray from a local pharmacy, tried some chili corn from the street that ended up not being worth the money, and located the sandwich shop I was looking for earlier.
I placed an order for a white cheddar sandwich and sat down. People at the shop were watching the semi-finals match between India and New Zealand. The crowd cheered as Virat Kohli hit boundaries after boundaries, racking up the runs. The common consensus among INdians was that their team will win the cup this time around, which eventually went to Australia.
After picking some chocolates for my friends, I returned to the hotel, exhausted. I had a flight to catch at 1.55 PM the next day, so I set an alarm for 9 AM after I was done packing and eating dinner. I lost all sensation in my legs when I finally lied down. Because of my busy day, I couldn’t visit James Prinsep Ghat and take a boat trip, but there was nothing to do.
I woke up on schedule, got dressed, and left the hotel by ten. I packed a sandwich and bought two perfumes from Newmarket. The store owner recommended taking the metro for a quick and inexpensive trip to the airport. I exchanged INR for dollars and bought a metro ticket, which ended up being cheaper than the one in Bangladesh.
The metro took me to the Dum Dum station, from where I needed to take a taxi. As it turned out, I didn’t have enough money for the fare, since the prices had gotten steep. I was starting to become worried, but then I met a man who agreed to split the taxi fare to go to the airport. His flight was around the same time as mine, and he was heading to his camp in Guwahati, Assam.
We arrived at the airport in about thirty minutes. The airport, compared to the one in Dhaka, was much less crowded, and was richer from an architectural point of view. I got my boarding pass and presented my ticket, and while I knew that a physical ticket was not required, I printed one just to be safe from a shop that overcharged me insanely.
I ran into another Bangladeshi in the boarding area, and he was facing some difficulties as he was carrying over the permitted weight. He was short on INR for the weight charge, and I decided to help him out. After we landed in Dhaka, he gave me my money back.
After securing my boarding pass, I got cleared by immigration, which only took a few seconds. I made my way to the final security checkpoint prior to takeoff. The airport in Kolkata was thrice as big as Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, and much quieter in comparison. After some waiting time, a shuttle bus arrived to take us to the aircraft, and I took a few pictures before boarding. The plan had arrived ahead of schedule, and after a brief introduction from the pilot and co-pilot, we took off.
Getting to Dhaka took one and a half hours, and I spent twenty more minutes to complete the formal procedures after breezing through immigration and customs. Holding onto my large travel backpack and the shopping bag from the Titan showroom, I hired a bike to head to IUT. Within the span of a day, I traveled to a different country and made my return, had some valuable life experiences, and not to mention, a cold.
(END)