25 Things to See & Do in Kolkata

Simultaneously noble and squalid, cultured and desperate, Kolkata is a daily festival of human existence. And it’s all played out before your very eyes on teeming streets where not an inch of space is wasted. By its old spelling, Calcutta, India’s second-biggest city is locally regarded as the intellectual and cultural capital of the nation.

If you're visiting Kolkata, the capital of Bengal and the erstwhile capital of British India, these are some places I would recommend you must visit. My selection - from the Lonely Planet Guide to Kolkata.

1. Victoria Memorial

The incredible Victoria Memorial is a vast, beautifully proportioned festival of white marble: think US Capitol meets Taj Mahal. Had it been built for a beautiful Indian princess rather than a dead colonial queen, this would surely be considered one of India’s greatest buildings.

2. Belur Math

Set very attractively amid palms and manicured lawns, this large religious centre is the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission, inspired by 19th-century Indian sage Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who preached the unity of all religions.

3. Dakshineswar

The heart of this vibrant riverside complex is a cream-and-red 1847 Kali Temple shaped like an Indian Sacré-Coeur. The site is where Ramakrishna started his remarkable spiritual journey, and his small room in the outer northwest corner of the temple precinct is now a place of special meditative reverence.

4. Indian Museum

Kolkata’s old-fashioned main museum fills a colonnaded palace ranged around a central lawn. Extensive exhibits include fabulous 1000-year-old Hindu sculptures, lumpy minerals, a dangling whale skeleton and an ancient Egyptian mummy.

5. Tagore’s House

Within Rabindra Bharati University, the comfortable 1784 family mansion of Rabindranath Tagore has become a shrine-like museum to India’s greatest modern poet. Even if his personal effects don’t inspire you, some of the well-chosen quotations might spark an interest in Tagore’s deeply universalist philosophy.

6. Botanical Gardens

If it weren’t such an awkward trek by public transport, Kolkata’s lovely 109-hectare Botanical Gardens would make a great place to escape from the city’s sounds and smells. Founded in 1786, the gardens played an important role in cultivating tea long before the drink became a household commodity.

7. Kalighat Temple

This ancient Kali temple is Kolkata’s holiest spot for Hindus and possibly the source of the city’s name. Today’s version, a 1809 rebuild, has floral- and peacock-motif tiles that look more Victorian than Indian.

8. Kumartuli

Many of the giant god effigies that are immersed in the holy Hooghly during Kolkata’s colourful pujas have been made by the kumar (sculptors) of this enthralling district.

9. Old Chinatown

For nearly two centuries the area around Phears Lane was home to a predominantly Christian Chinese community, many of whom fled or were interned during a fit of anti-Chinese fervour during the 1962 war. These days ‘old’ Chinatown is pretty run down and predominantly Muslim – a fascinating place to glimpse Kolkata’s contrasts.

10. Howrah Bridge

Howrah Bridge is a 705m-long abstraction of steel cantilevers and traffic fumes. Built during WWII, it’s one of the world’s busiest bridges and one of Kokata’s greatest architectural icons. Photography of the bridge is technically prohibited but you might sneak a discreet shot from one of the various ferries that ply the Hooghly River to the vast 1906 Howrah train station.

11. Alipore Zoo

Kolkata’s 16-hectare zoo first opened in 1875. The spacious lawns and lakeside promenades are very popular with weekend picnickers (hence all the rubbish). Grass is so high in the moated Bengal Tiger enclosure that it’s hard to spot the animals but it’s better than several more confining cages and the aviaries whose thick rusty-black wire-mesh rather obscures viewing.

12. Eden Gardens

The vast Ranji Stadium hosting Kolkata cricket matches is commonly nicknamed for the Eden Gardens that lie behind. Those gardens feature a lake and picturesque Burmese pagoda . Entry to the staium is usually limited to the south gate, but a small, more convenient north portal near Gate 12 of Ranji Stadium is occasionally open. Bring ID.

13. St Paul’s Cathedral

With its central crenellated tower, St Paul’s would look quite at home in Cambridgeshire. Built 1839–47, it has a remarkably wide nave and features a stained-glass west window by pre-Raphaelite maestro Sir Edward Burne-Jones.

14. Birla Mandir

The 20th-century Birla Mandir is a large Lakshmi Narayan temple complex in cream-coloured sandstone whose three corn-cob shaped towers are more impressive for their size than their carvings.

15. The Maidan

After the ‘Black Hole’ fiasco, a moated ‘second’ Fort William was constructed in 1758 in octagonal, Vaubanesque form. The whole village of Gobindapur was flattened to give the new fort’s cannons a clear line of fire. Though sad for then-residents, this created the Maidan (moi-dan), a 3km-long park that is today as fundamental to Kolkata as Central Park is to New York City. Fort William itself remains hidden within a walled military zone.

16. National Library

Located directly south of the entrance to the zoo is the (private) access road to the National Library , It is India’s biggest.

17. Birla Planetarium

Loosely styled on Sarnath’s classic Buddhist stupa, this 1962 dome presents slow-moving, half-hour star shows.

18. Esplanade

Rising above chaotic Esplanade bus station, the 1828 Sahid Minar is a 48m-tall round-topped obelisk originally celebrating an 1814 British military victory over Nepal. Across one of Kolkata’s busiest junctions, the striking Metropolitan Building was originally a colonial-era department store. Left derelict for years, a long overdue 2009 restoration saw its corner domes regilded. A block north, the fanciful Tippu Sultan’s Mosque hides almost invisibly behind street stalls.

19. Mother Teresa's Motherhouse

A regular flow of mostly Christian pilgrims visit the Missionaries of Charity’s 'Motherhouse' to pay homage at Mother Teresa’s large, sober tomb.

20. Rabindra Sarovar

The parkland here is less beautiful than Kolkata’s Botanical Gardens but the lake prettily reflects hazy sunrises while middle-class Kolkatans jog, row and meditate.

(Courtesy: Lonely Planet; All links lead to LP)

Don't Miss:

1.  Buying old books at College Street,
2. Visiting Birla Science Museum,
3. Taking kids to Science City and Nicco Park,
4. Go to Jubilee Park by the Hoogly and a short boat ride in the afternoon
5.  Pubbing at Park Street

Ravi Shankar: Godfather of World Music dies at 92

Sitar Maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, whom George Harrison called the "Godfather of World Music", passed away at the age of 92 years on December 11, 2012. This article by me appeared a decade ago on the occasion of the maestro's 80th birth anniversary in April 2001 on About.com's Bengal Culture GuideSite - part of the New York Times Company. Read on...

"To me, his genius and his humanity can only be compared to that of Mozart's." ~ Yehudi Menuhin

Part 1: His Genius & His Humanity  

Even at this age, the legendary Bengali master musician's genius and greatness is without equal. His recent concert at the Siri Fort Auditorium in New Delhi, along with his already famous teenage daughter Anoushka, was a fund-raiser for the Gujarat earthquake victims. He proved it yet once again that music can do a lot for humankind - it not only delights but also wipes away the tears of the unfortunate. The sitar guru plucked his "strings of relief" for the sufferers and reiterated that he is a singular phenomenon in the world of music.

The Power of Mother Tongue

International Mother Language Day & History of the Language Movement  

Mother tongue, the language we inherit from our mothers, is indeed the language closest to our hearts, the language we understand best, the language that helps us most clearly express our pains and pangs, hopes and aspirations, laughter and joys. What can be more beautiful and more natural? But what do you do when someone wants to rob you of your mother tongue? Bengalis have shown the world how to annihilate such attempts and establish the right to mother tongue. 

Vikram Seth's Historic Speech at Kolkata Literary Meet 2012

The following text has been quoted from the transcript of Vikram Seth's inaugural address at the opening of  the first Kolkata Literary Meet on January 26, 2012.

Thank you very much for inviting me this Republic Day to inaugurate the first Kolkata Literary Meet - or KLM - or (most aptly of all) 'Kolom'.

By the word 'kolom' I imagine we mean not only the pen but also the typewriter and the computer - in other words, any means of writing. The 'kolom' represents them all.

I am happy and honoured to be here - in this place, during this year, on this day, for this occasion.

In this place, because I am back where I was born.

During this year, because it is a century and a half since the birth of Tagore.

On this day, because it was today, more than sixty years ago, that we put into effect the book of law by which we as a nation live.

For this occasion, because it celebrates the word not as law but as literature, the expression of ourselves as human beings.

I shall call these the four 'ko's, following the Bengali style: Kolkata, Kobi, Constitution, Kolom: the place Kolkata, the year of the Kobi, the day of the Constitution, the occasion of Kolom.

Let me say a few words about each of these.

The Genius of Ritwik Ghatak

Today was the 86th birthday of Ritwik Ghatak, the powerful Bengali director, scriptwriter and documentary filmmaker, whose extraordinary genius was most enthusiastically received only after his death.

The man who could have been the father of alternative Indian cinema had his film Nagarik been released before Pather Panchali, Ritwik Ghatak spent his lifetime in the shadow of another Bengali stalwart, Oscar winning filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who never failed to take away the limelight, while the former struggled to finance his projects and battled relentlessly with a 'variety of personal and political demons.'

9/11, Gopal Mitra & His Dream Towers

Laments of a WTC Architect

After the historic collapse of the World Trade Center, a 65-year-old Bengali architect Gopal Mitra suddenly made headlines across television channels and newspapers in India. Mitra, who worked with Minoru Yamasaki and Associates, one of the construction companies that designed the WTC structure — the other being Emery Roth and Sons — was involved in the WTC project from its conception to commissioning.

Sitting beside a miniature replica of the WTC at his office in Tollygunge, Calcutta, Mitra was aghast at the sight of his dream towers crumbling down, as news reports of the September 11 attacks unfolded on his television screen. He couldn't believe that the twin towers could
ever collapse like this.

It was Indestructible!

Mitra recalled why the construction of WTC was a major landmark in architectural engineering. Unlike any contemporary skyscraper, its walls were skin-stressed, i.e., "the walls were self-supported and did not depend on the roofs and floor to stand erect."

While designing the building, Mitra and his colleagues took into account every possible threat — earthquake, storm, wind and fire. None could imagine that someday, thousands of gallons of aviation fluid would be set aflame inside its belly. He is particularly regretful of the fact that the building was equipped with one of the most advanced fire-fighting mechanisms in the world, yet it was finally destroyed by fire. He told the Calcutta daily Telegraph: "When we had designed it, we had never dreamt that one day it would be the target of a terrorist attack and that it would be destroyed in this manner; life was not that complicated in those days." However, he maintained that the WTC did not collapse, rather "it was punctured, and fell apart floor by floor."

The Dream Towers!

Gopal Mitra told the Delhi Times how his tryst with the twin towers began: In 1964, after completing his masters degree in Architecture from the University of Michigan, Mitra was working with Erro Sarrinen & Associates in New York. One day, Minoru Yamasaki, the chief architect of the towers, happened to see his drawings and offered him to work for the WTC project. Soon Mitra was in Yamasaki's design team working almost 18 hours a day to lay down the plans of the building. "Then the only aim of our lives was to put together this dream project," he reminisces.

Remembering his team-members E. L. Tungsten, William Ku and Dr Killing, Mitra said that the thrill of designing the tallest building in the world made the architects overcome a whole lot of constraints. "I remember how I drew sketches of the structure over and over again till my seniors approved of it," he added. Finally, Prof. Mitra said that if he were to redesign the WTC all over again, he wouldn't change much of design, except for adding a "special protective skin" around the structure so that no flying object can damage the building.

Later Gopal Mitra joined IIT Kharagpur, his alma mater, as professor of civil engineering, and established an architectural firm by the name of Buildcon in the early 1970s that has ever since designed, developed and promoted a number of buildings and apartments in Calcutta and New Delhi. Today, he is the Rector of Modern Academy, Calcutta and five other 'gurukuls'. The Modern Academy International, a co-educational, residential school coming up at Kosi-Kalan near New Delhi, is also the brainchild of Prof. Mitra, and has come into being because of his immense faith in the Upanishads and a great respect for the American system of education.

 

This article by me appeared on About.com soon after the 2001 September 11 attacks on America by the Jihadees. Reproducing it here on the 10th anniversary of the event that changed our world.

A Tribute to Kishore Kumar: Six Superb Songs at Muziboo

A Tribute to Kishore Kumar: Six Superb Songs at Muziboo | Upload Music

Dr Sid Mukherjee Wins Pulitzer for Non-Fiction

Another Bengali writer of English prose has made it to the prestigious Pulitzer Winner's list. After Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies: Tales from Bengal, Boston & Beyond (2000), it's Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (2010), which has won the Pultizer Prize - this time in the general non-fiction category. The jury described Dr. Mukherjee's book as "an elegant inquiry, at once clinical and personal, into the long history of an insidious disease that, despite treatment breakthroughs, still bedevils medical science." He will receive $10,000 as prize money for "a distinguished and appropriately documented book of nonfiction by an American author."

About the Author

Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer physician and researcher. He is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Center. A Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, Harvard Medical School. He has published articles in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, The New York Times, and The New Republic. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters.

About the Book

The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist.

From the Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave cut off her malignant breast, to the nineteenth-century recipients of primitive radiation and chemotherapy to Mukherjee’s own leukemia patient, Carla, The Emperor of All Maladies is about the people who have soldiered through fiercely demanding regimens in order to survive—and to increase our understanding of this iconic disease.

Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer. (From Scribner)

Such a Nostalgic Song!

Why this Sad Song was Salil Da's Favorite... Some very Curious Facts! 

মনে পড়ে সেই সব দিন ('Mone Pore Shei Shob Din') from the film Swarnatrishaa (1992) is the last and arguably the best song sung by Kishore Kumar for Salil Chowdhury. It has been one my favorite songs of nostalgia, and of moments of past joy since the time I first heard it in the late 1980s.  I just loved the Hindi version of the song, which I discovered only a few years back. I thought this was perhaps his only song with a single 'antara' – as you’ll see in the video – until I found the full version, which I can’t but share with all of you. Listen to the song first and then we’ll talk about it in some detail (please ignore the intro-ad).

Happy Birthday, Salil Da!

A Tribute to the Legendary
Salil Chowdhury on his 85th Birthday

November 2010 marks the 85th birth anniversary of one of the greatest musicians India ever produced - Salil Chowdhury, the self-trained Bengali composer, music director, poet-lyricist and activist who had shaped Bengali popular music and left an indelible stamp on Bollywood songs. From tiny tots to the grannies and grandpas, Salil Chowdhury's melodies have touched every music lover, not only in India and Bangladesh, but around the world.

Early Life
Salil-Da, as many called him fondly, was born in Sonarpur, (24 Parganas) in West Bengal on November 19, 1925. He spent most of his early years in the verdant hillsides of Assam, where his father was a forest-officer. Salil was exposed to music, musicians and musical instruments right from his childhood. He trained himself on the flute, piano and violin and was introduced to Western classical music, particularly Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Chopin, as well as traditional North Indian classical music at a very early age.