The main hurdle while travelling to an unknown place is to find out a good place for accommodation and food. Once these two elements were sorted , the travelling fun gets double. I belive, foods holds an upper hand, as having a good food always help us to keep going and explore all new avenues of the new destination without getting tired. This time while travelling to Kolkatta, I found a unique way to sort the fooding issue. While my #accomodation were taken care at a friend's home, My #Fooding was taken care at Belur Math, popularly known as Ramakrishna Math and thats too along with humdered of people sitting and eating together.
Before I proceed with the amazing food experience, it is important to know about this besutiful spiritual place in India. Belur Math is a Hindu temple and tourist attraction located on the banks of the Ganges River. It was created by Swami Vivekananda, a disciple of Sree Ramakrishna Paramahansa. The organisation alwsys aims at people and society welfare. Everyday they organise a mass kitchen, where the vistors could get the good quality food at free or if they want they can donate some meagre amount. The kitchen and dining hall is situated at the back of the main temple and it is a place to get once a life time experinece. One needs to collect the coupon from the office to proceed towards the dining hall. The coupons are available till 11.30AM, you can collect free, or you can donate any amount as per your wish.
The Maa Sarada Sadavrata Kitchen Cum Dining Hall is located at Belur Math in Howrah. Some say that at least a thousand people can sit together and eat at the kitchen. There was huge queue that take us to the big auditorium. It took us 10 - 15 minutes to reach to the dining hall. I was quite intrigued to explore the dining hall first time.
A "mass kitchen" refers to a large-scale kitchen designed to prepare food in large quantities for a large number of people at once. The focus has alwsys been on efficiently cooking food for a mass audience rather than individual preferences; essentially, "cooking for the masses." The entire hall was clean and quite hygienic. There were steel made table and chairs all over the place. It was sitting area.
What I like most of the place, is the way they make the visitors to seat. I was surprised to find there were all kind of people poor or rich in the queue. They temple official, made each one of us seat systematically one after the another. We found our seat, in middle of the hall and the queue behind me is yet to be filled.
There were stainless steel utensil kept at each of the chair. There were plate and a small glass of water. Once the visitors started to settle, few of the temple people bought a trolley full of Khichdi and start serving on each plate. It was followed by another trolley that serves warm curry.
The dining hall has huge capacity to take lunch comfortably by disciples and visitors. It was amazing to see how they manage everything so smoothly. They made another around and serves as much as the person wants. We all eat together, and give a pleasant experince. As far as the food is concerned, it was far better than any outside food.
Some say that the food at Belur Math is delicious and that they never had such delicious food in a public gathering. The mass kitchen at Belur Math is known for being clean, well-maintained, and organized:
Cleanliness: Some say the kitchen is very clean and the mith is neat
Organization : Some say the kitchen is well-maintained and organized. I experinced the same, even there were so many people, but never any chaos created.
Spacious: Some say the kitchen is spacious. In fact it was a big that accommodate more 2500 people at once is quite big in size.
Food quality: Some say the food quality is good. It was tasty and delicious. Even it was a common food, but it has taste to go with and satisfy the hunger.
*Discipline: Some say the place is very disciplined. I witness that, nowhere such thing could be manage so easily. It was a smooth eating altogether.
It was a welcome treat and sorting the food issue. The food is much better than eating any outside food. I never felt uneasy because of food. So it was a good travel experince that remain with us forever.
