Country pleasures

It is no bigger than a dot when I spot it. Ten seconds later, it’s a bigger dot. Another 10, and it is the size of a well-fed black garden ant, scurrying along a neat little path between two beds of spinach.

The ‘ant’ is a bicycle, with two teenagers as riders. And the green patches are fields, criss-crossed by rivulets that looked like glittery ribbons from a distance. When the bicycle comes to a halt — at a pretty spot near a channel of water — the riders get down to the business of fishing with only a hand net. Sans the equipment that you normally associate with the leisurely activity — fishing rod, bait, reel and so on — the two youngsters fumble around like I did at the immigration counter on my first trip abroad.

At this point, I decide to turn my gaze elsewhere — to the inviting slices of nolen gur er sandesh that have waited a whole night by the bedside on a miniature wicker boat. That’s a pretty sight too. The other slice, the countryside-like heaven right across a bypass from my swanky five-star hotel room, is not going anywhere yet. So I can return to it after a late breakfast. Or after the spa session post lunch.

It’s strange that I should be thinking of food. More food, that is.

It hasn’t been even 12 hours since my arrival at JW Marriott’s first hotel in Kolkata, the town where I was born and raised. A quick welcome (garland, tika et al) and check-in later — the best thing after a long day at work and a late-evening flight packed with tired mothers trying, and failing, to pacify bawling babies — I had a hot bowl of Irish lamb stew and a light salad of rocket leaves, pine nuts, kalamata olives, pomegranate and parmesan shavings for company. Half an hour to midnight, I was one of the last diners at JW Kitchen, the all-day dining on the ground floor. I refused polite offers for green or chamomile tea, only to retain the freshness of the salad in my mouth.

It’s morning before I take stock of where I had slept like a log at night — high in the sparkling new building, bang on Kolkata’s EM Bypass; in a deluxe room bigger than my first studio apartment in Mumbai; with a bathroom laden with Aromatherapy Associates toiletries. Pull the curtains back and beyond the steady stream of vehicles on the road that never gets a moment of rest, lie the green fields and waterbodies.

This is a view not many hotel rooms in Indian cities can boast of. It’s only a road that divides the two realities: a landscape that most people in Kolkata only drive past on their way to the airport and back, and a modern luxury hotel that is a welcome addition to the very few that the city had till only about five years ago. And as long as the two realities don’t clash, anyone in a room like mine is in for a visual treat.

Speaking of treats, it’s time for breakfast and I am in the mood for Mediterranean. So I load my platter with hummus, pita with dried mint and zaatar, figs, olives, tomatoes, dates and coffee. And then arrive pesarattus with fresh peanut and ginger chutneys, courtesy a young chef who is very keen I try something from his counter. In trying to make room for all this, I spend 20 more minutes at the open-kitchen restaurant. The weekend is upon them, and the staff is also busy readying the place for the lunch buffet — a reasonably priced spread that has found takers across the city’s many age groups.

On my walk back to the room, after a quick round of the hotel that is less than a year old, I find silver-haired women in tangail and muga silk saris being helped to their chairs by grandchildren. Some of them, warm plates in hand, inspect the many live counters. Birthday cakes make their way to several tables as families huddle together for selfies, and frisky children have a go at the curtain made of small metal bells at one end of the restaurant. And all through this happy chaos, an unusually mellow April sun shines generously through the glass façade. Given my dislike for artificial lights, this is the day’s second treat for the eyes.

A carefully planned Bengali lunch — I stress on ‘careful’ because serving Bengali food to seasoned Bengali taste buds requires a dollop of courage — translates into extra work for an overburdened digestive system. But that’s how it is when you have to do justice to shorshe (mustard) ilish, alu jhinge posto (potatoes and ridge gourd in poppy seed paste), alu bhaja (potato fritters) and begun bhaja (brinjal fry) among other things. I beg for a half-hour break between this huge meal and my spa appointment. I have to work the limbs in order to stop myself from falling into a heap.

It seems only natural that the spa manager should recommend a ‘Deep Sleep’ massage. I surrender readily, thoroughly enjoying the pin-drop silence in the Spa by JW. Masseuse Pema understands that she has a big pile of lazy bones and cellulite to take care of, and does a good job of it. She rids my shoulders of knots and pains induced by the twin plagues of smartphones and social media. The fragrance of the oil, sourced from Mumbai, doesn’t leave my skin even after the cold shower. I hobble back to the room like a just-born elephant calf in a NatGeo documentary.

I consider cancelling the dinner appointment at Vintage Asia as I lie motionless on the bed. When the first lights in the buildings along the Bypass begin to flicker, I do the inevitable — sleep. And sleep is what I do until next morning, when I pull back the curtains once more to admire the view that I won’t have access to by evening. There is no room in my stomach for the turndown chocolates from the night before. I wonder why.

The answer is the Vintage Asia meal that I didn’t cancel. Somewhere, between spa-led stupor and actual deep sleep, I had (sleep)walked to a quiet table laden with pots of jasmine tea, edamame and truffle dim sums, spiced caramelised pork belly and Thai duck curry. Just one year from turning 40, it is good to be able to blame such memory lapses on bottles of Riesling. Cheers to that!

(The writer was in Kolkata on the invitation of JW Marriott)