Tuesday, July 29, 2014

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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