Day Four - If you drive like hell, you will reach there soon

But it still took us an hour to reach the north side of the city. We were visiting the temple complexes of Dakshinishwar and Belur Math. Photography was adamantly prohibited so you'll just have to get an idea from the Wikipedia links. Daksinishwar was built with a clay brick structure covered with plaster and then painted. Belur Math was built from stone.

We took taxis for much of the day. The photo above was our driver to and from the temple complexes. After Melissa greeted him with the standard Sikh greeting he got all happy and started teaching her all these phrases. He was a funny guy.

The Ambassador taxis that we were in had, of course, no air conditioning. The windows had to be open for air circulation. The problem with this was that all the trucks and buses in the city had their exhaust pipes close to the pavement. We were inudated with rolling black clouds of exhaust. It was rather severe and uncomfortable.
In the afternoon, we visited the Horticultural Society of India (w/ Mahua Ghosh, landscape architect and member of CBE; Anupama Mitra and Subhojit Lahiri, Agri Horticultural Society) on Alipore Road. Founded in 1820, it is the second oldest horticultural society in the world -- the first being the Royal Horticultural Society of London founded in 1816. We were told about how they had a water conference for landscape archiects last year and realized that water is a priceless resource -- that bird baths on roof gardens are extravagant. Some of the other things discussed were deforestation (losing medicinal plants) and educating clients on solutions to these problems.

After this meeting we had a tour of the gardens. The 'Mad Tree' was notable for the distinction that not one of its leaves are alike.
At about 5pm we split off into three groups -- one went to New Light, Nate and Jessica stayed to see more of the garden, and one went to walk the Adi Ganga Canal in Kalighat.
The New Light building.
The Canal is tidal, here it is seen flowing north. The stench from the garbage was repulsive. I would not say nauseating but it was still unpleasant. Sulfur, methane? and decomposing stuff were the principal scents.

The sluice gates seemed to function for storm water and drainage but presently have the function of taking everything including the "baby and the bath water" with it out into the canal.
This was curious -- the lines on the buildings and street seemed to designate a function. A game perhaps?