Hello everyone, I am Debajyoti Banerjee, your Level 8 google local guide from India, West Bengal, Hooghly. Hope you are doing well in this pandemic period and will do a lot better when this period will be over, today I’m going to share my experience about the “Essence of Bengal” no I am not talking about the restaurant but from a bigger perspective of what have I learned from my experience while travelling to different places in West Bengal, now there are not some people who have been travelled to this part of our country but there are nearly 92.36 millions of people travelled to west Bengal in 2019 apart from that there are 1.66 millions of foreign travellers who have been to West Bengal according to a Statista Research Department published on July 27,2021 and an average of 60-65 million people travel to this state every year and many of them are Google local guides like you and me isn’t it fascinating about this state in India, well some people have a prenotion about this place that people live in Bengal just eat fish, rice and sleep all day long but actually it’s not true, let me start telling you about what you can see if you visit this state for the first time or planning to visit this state, well this place is a mixture of arts & crafts, culture, heritage, modernization from all over India has begun in this state, there are lots of changes that has happened over time like new roads, bridges, skyscraper buildings, parks, IT hubs leaving it behind let me tell you about the daily routine starting from morning 6 a.m. you will see people of nearly every age group go out for walking and doing physical activities after that they go to tea stalls and and sweet shops to start day by drinking a cup of tea and eating kachori sabzi not everyone eats kachori sabzi some eat Maggi or bread toast after that in the morning hours between 9-10 am you will see people are rushing to go to their offices and students rushing to go to their schools/ institutions, universities, etc it is a very busy fast life after that restaurants, cafes and other shops open to get themselves prepared for the ultrafast busy public’s demand that will occur later in the lunch hours in that busy-ness going around you. Now you will try to find some peace and fresh air right, for that there are place like Gangtok, Darjeeling, Simla in the northern parts of West Bengal, In the southern part there Digha, Puri, Bay of Bengal (near Sundarbans), now if you go to the middle eastern part of West Bengal, you will find greeneries of Bengal like Mayapur, Sundarbans Jungle and forest Reserves these places have many different kinds and varieties of cultures, arts, tribes, animals, houses/ cottages, etc.
Now after seeing all these places you would hungry to eat some exotic foods in the afternoon right well there nearly combinations of nearly 500-1000 different dishes of food all over west Bengal, if you are non-vegetarian and not a fitness freak you will Chicken, Mutton, lamb, Fish, biryani, Kebab, Shawarma, rice, Nan all are gluten free except beef or beef is also available if you try to find a little bit more but I will recommend you to go for any other dish except beef it may not be gluten free and it is generally avoided in this region. etc or if you are vegetarian there are uncountable dishes available in the restaurants which are gluten free marked by local guides and travellers on maps after you may have choice to take some rest or not it’s up to you, but we know that ‘B’ for "Bengal and ‘B’ also for “Busy” so in the evening which starts from 6 pm and ends at 9pm you will see there are varieties of fries, Chaats and fast food corners available and nearly every shop has a unique starter fast food items available not too expensive in the market area ,you will find dominos and other 3-5 star food corners in super-malls are open for shopping and movie theatres are available to enjoy movie which we Bengalis love to watch like Hollywood, Bollywood, Tollywood and Nollywood movies.
After all, that much amount of shopping our body requires food as fuel to run right. There are every star and kind of restaurant available in the market where you can have dinner at which have something special waiting for you, then there are 2star-7star hotels where you can stay and complete your day by taking a rest. Now one thing is common in West Bengal. You can observe there are always Bengali speaking/understanding people available in nearly every corner of West Bengal and there are also Bengali speaking people who are multilingual who will know Hindi, English, Bihari and other languages from different cultures and parts of India.
I hope I gave you an essence of Bengal, though there are many surprises awaiting for you in west Bengal which I will not disclose and you will have to let yourself free to find out these surprises by yourselves, thank you.
