You know you are from Kolkata when..............
• You correct everyone who says “Calcutta” and reiterate that it’s “Kolkata”.
• Someone, somewhere in your family had been a die-hard Statesman newspaper fan and had read nothing else but Statesman for years!
• You think that you are very fluent in Hindi and consider it your second mother tongue (even when u speak quite rubbish Hindi grammar and twist Bengali to make it sound like Hindi)
• You just love Kookie Jar Chocolate éclair and Flury’s cream rolls (although you hardly had enough money to buy them during student life)
• You used to have Monginis or Jalajoga Cakes for tiffin in school
• You just adore Nahum’s…and not once would you come back from New Market without spending on bag fulls of tidbits from there
• You can hog on Kolkata roadside food and still manage to escape stomach upsets
• Your idea of hanging out with friends is to go and sit and have adda-session for hours at Coffee House or Nandan, have lemon-salted tea and debate on politics or literature
• You had all your puja shopping done from New Market or Vardhan Market when you were young
• You love bandhs and play cricket or badminton on the streets whenever there is one
• You just cannot think of going to places like Someplace Else and Atrium Café when you are in college…yet when you start working, you definitely start adoring those places!
• You love City Center hangout, CCD and Oxford Chai Bar
• You love places like Calcutta School of Music, Nazrul Manch, Shishir Mancha and have gone their at least once to watch a theater or listen to music
• You simply love eating at Haldirams, Bhikaram’s and Tiwari!
• Your idea of college life dating must have been Victoria Memorial, Haldirams, Nandan, Lake, Coffee House and cheaper movie halls.
• You love Christmas more than Christians do…buy Christmas trees and go out on Christmas. Eating at least one cake is compulsory!
• You call everyone (starting from the traffic police to the auto drivers to even Saurav Ganguly) DADA!
• Your idea of going out for a high-end dinner is going to Park Street
• Your idea of going for a long drive is to drive down the wide Rajarhat roads.
• Your north Indian friends make fun of you when you use ‘ hum’ instead of ‘main’
• You used to make trips to Nicco Park almost every month when you were a kid. You called Nicco Park, Jhilmil for a long time!
• You had chatted for hours sitting at the Metro station, just to escape the harsh sun outside.
• You think that your school is the best school in Kolkata, and since Kolkata is your world, nothing else mattered!
• You think that a person is stupid and had never had the real taste of it, if he calls puchka as pani puri or golgappa
• You have had drinks like ‘Masala Shikanjchi’ and 'Masala ThumbsUp'
• You have various groups of friends - school friends, college friends, building/para friends, and some are just random, common friends
• You keep cursing the driving of the buswallas and autowallas
• You keep praying for rains/ for a bandh just so that it floods and your exam is postponed
• You just show your palm to cars approaching you while crossing the road and expect them to stop immediately
• You have Dominos and Pizza Hut numbers on your fingertips
• You are stuck in endless traffic jams during durga puja as half the road space is taken up by the puja pandals, yet you go out every year during this time
• You somehow manage to get hold of your stock of chocolate bombs and aloo bombs during Diwali even though it is banned
• Your evening snack consists of tele bhaja/ jhal muri/bhel/aloo dum/papri chaat, etc.
• You love Dada aka Saurav Ganguly and can fight with people who say against him(unlike me)
• You listen to FM all the time
• You support either Mohun Bagan or East Bengal, even if you don’t understand football that much
• You think of Flury's and t3 when you think of breakfast
• You think the best Chinese food is still found at Peiping..or Marco Polo or China Town
• You love hogging Idly and Dosa at Haldiram’s, Anand’s or Rally’s
• A Mamata Banerjee rally is just like another daily event which you pay no heed to...as well as the so called’ Bangla Bandh’s’
• You either support CPM or Trinomool strongly, no mid way (annoying)
• You go to all extents to argue with your friends about Kolkata being the best amongst all metros in India and it is the cheapest metro city.
• You crave for Puchka’s(pani puri’s) paw bhajis, chaats and chole tikka
• You have a new passion...Kolkata Knight Riders... and its ShahRukh Khan.. <3
• Every person who’s not a Bengali is called by a common name, “non Bengali”
• You love college street to buy study books but Oxford to buy story books
• You wait for Durga Puja all year... whether even you go out for vacation at that time ;-)
• You still love the old charm of Landmark and Camac Street Forum, in spite of all the new malls...(but Inox Forum comes up with the most expensive tickets throught out L)
• You still call it 'Cal' even after the name change
• You love Kolkata Book Fair and go there every evening when the fair’s on, even if you don’t read books( basically to have good food and just roam here and there in that huge crowd)
• You think intellectualism is synonymous with Kolkata.( which i abhor it from the core of my heart)
• You feel the best of junk, second hand jewelry and cheap beautiful clothes can be found only in Kolkata
• You know that the best fresh water fish recipe and the best food of India comes from Kolkata
• You know that the most well behaved and attractive people are from Kolkata
• You realize how much you LOVE Kolkata only after you have lived outside Kolkata and traveled around the globe
