Sudder street is one of those popular places located in Kolkata, famous for the cheapest hotels for tourists to stay. Sudder street which is in central kolkata adjacent to New market is quite famous for economy hotels and is flooded with tourists and then beggars too.
It is here at Sudder street where you can find plenty of hotels from a wide range of prices where you can find bed rooms that even costs as cheap as Rs 100 per night. Anyone passing this street can find Asian faces, like tourists from Korea, China, Malaysia or white faces from people
all over Europe, America and Australia.Sudder street also has the cheapest tea shops, restaurants, fast food stalls, take aways, bars, pubs etc. Now, since this place Sudder Street is located at Central Kolkata is just near the main bus terminus Esplanade, the famous New Market, the Great Indian Museum, metro stations, Park street etc. As Sudder Street is a junction of tourists, beggars find it quite easy to beg around these areas, as they believe and is true that tourists from international destinations in Kolkata, would offer them more financial help than local ones.
Beggars here are often seen speaking in English with tourists and this is actually quite amazing. Beggars here are quite used to chatting with foreign tourists that they actually have learnt English communication fluently and this is awesome. Well, I personally find
it quite annoying. Myself the writer, am an Indian from the North East, have an Asian face, so whenever I pass through this street, beggars confuse me for being a Korean or a Chinese tourist, and come after me asking for help and having a very friendly attitude with me, and then when I speak back to them in the local language, that is Hindi or Bengali, they get quite amazed.I guess this is what you call the real face of India. Though India has developed a lot compared to the past decades, poverty and begging still does exists. In various cities, like Kolkata, beggars are flooded out everywhere from popular tourist destinations, railway stations and literally everywhere. Sudder street have beggars ranging from kids, mothers, old aged people, to physically challenged to mentally ill people.
Famous hotels in this Sudder Street are Fairlawn hotel, Hotel Capitol, Lytton hotel, etc and other very cheap hotels too. Myself, Nischal Gurung aka Mr Arrogant is working on a documentary on beggar life in Sudder Street which would be out soon so hoping for the best and would be happy to share that too with all my viewers. Do like and share this article in Facebook if you think it is worth it.