New Delhi, Oct. 11 -- It was a Bengali sandesh but unlike any sweet I had ever had.

First of all it was grey. It used charcoal as an ingredient. There was no sugar. It was sweetened by Stevia. And instead of the usual filling of molten gur or honey, it had Camembert cheese.

In short, it was a sort of a love child of Bengal and France and it was making its debut at a booth in Chandannagar, the erstwhile French settlement near Kolkata once known as Chandernagore.

This September the French government and the West Bengal government signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to restore the dilapidated Registry building, once a courthouse built in 1875, on the promenade along the river. And it decided to mark the occasion with a mini street ...