Trip to Kolkata

I went to kolkata to attend ICAPR-09 on 2nd February. I had a paper accepted in that conference. the conference was from 4th Feb to 6th Feb. It takes around 27 hours from Hyderabad to Kolkata by to train. We traveled by Falaknuma Express from Secunderabad to Howrah. We reached at Howrah station around 7.00 PM on 3rd. Howrah Station is one of the largest railway terminals in the country. It has 22 platforms.

From Howrah station we took a pre-paid taxi to reach ISI Kolkata. It was costed 165Rs. for us. On the way we crossed Howrah bridge, which is one of the heritage of Kolkata. On 14 June 1965 it was renamed Rabindra Setu, after Rabindranatha Tagore a great poet and the first Indian Nobel laureate. However it is still popularly known as the Howrah Bridge.
We reached ISI around 8.30 PM, since it was sooo rush in all the roads at that time. The rooms were already booked for us in the ISI guest house. The stay at ISI was cool.

The next day, on 4th, the program had scheduled to start at 10 AM. But there was an unexpected load shedding at that time. The venue for the program was the Geology auditorium, in the Geology block of ISI. and this building was given the priority connection, because of that, the power cut never happened there, so, they had no generators also !! Anyways, by 10.30, the inauguration was done in the light of emergency lamp. I wonder what would have the foreigners, who were present there, think about this instance. anyways after sometime the power came,, and everything went well thereafter. We attended all the sessions on that day.

My presentation was on 5th, afternoon. so, I kept myself in the room, for the morning session and went for the evening session. I presented our work "Empirical Evaluation of Character Classification Schemes". The presentation went well, and I got a couple of appreciation about the work too.. and I am happy about it :)... We had the conference BANQUET at The Oberoi Grand. There was a cultural Gala by -- COLORS a fusion band -- organized there. I enjoyed the music very much.

Now on 6th, day to wander around Kolkata.. :) .. We first visited Dakshineswar Maha Kali Mandir. From there we took a boat to Belur Math, the head courters of RamaKrishna Mission. The boat through Hoogly was journey was very interesting. We visited the Temple and the museum there. From Belur math we took a bus to Dharathale, to reach a metro station. The Metro Railway, Kolkata is the first underground Metro Railway in India. It was really amazing. We reached Kaligath. We visited at the Kali Temple. The name of Kolkata was derived from this famous Kaligath. From there, we went to visit Birla planetarium. Since the show was already started we went in a horse drawn tram, for a round trip. The horse wala dropped us near Victoria Memorial, which was built in Memory of Queen Victoria, and it was built like Taj Mahal. (But it was not like Taj Mahal :D ). After that we walked towards Birla Planetarium., which is one of the largest planetariums in Asia. We attened the show at 4.30, which was in Hindi. There are shows in English and Bengali too, in other timings. It was around 5.30 then. We went to the Esplanade Metro station to catch a Metro till, ShyamBazar, and from there took a taxi to reach ISI campus. Now the end of the day.

Started from ISI on 7th 6 AM, to catch the train scheduled at 7.25 AM. Now reached back to Hyderabad on 8th around 10.30AM. :).. Thats all a short description about our Kolkata trip .. :)...