… is a beautiful place!
“Contiguous to the Esplanade is the Government House, a superb edifice, approached by four colossal gates emblazoned with the Britannic Arms.” – Thomas & William Daniell, British painters, 1810. Before we get into more intricate details of Raj Bhawan, there is one little thing, well technically about 100 tonnes (or a little more) heavy, that […]
Read More Stories around the Government House Part IIRemember our young friend Billy (God bless his soul), who unfortunately perished to a bad bout of dysentery on landing in Kolkata in the early 1900s? The one whose letters from his betrothed Rose lay undelivered for centuries at the Dead Letter Post Office standing right in the heart of Dalhousie Square, Calcutta? While the […]
Read More To Wilson’s, or to Spence’s Hall…“The Government House is, without doubt, the finest Government House occupied by the representative of any Sovereign or Government in the world.” – George Nathaniel Curzon, Viceroy of British India on Government House, Calcutta Imagine living in a palace and ruling from it a century after it was built designed on the lines of the […]
Read More Stories around the Government House Part II am not someone who is overly possessive about having things within my control, but for a few things that fall within my jurisdiction, I prefer to do them myself without any interference. That, fortunately, leaves a number of people around me pretty happy with time to spare for other pursuits. And there is this […]
Read More The yellow tinted window and the world within it…“… he made himself beloved by both the subject many and by the dominant few’ and ‘enjoyed among the natives a popularity… such as no other governor has been able to attain’… I could still hear ‘nurses sing children to sleep with a jingling ballad about the fleet horses and richly caparisoned elephants of Sahib […]
Read More Story of the Government House – How it all started“On the 7th of August, 1905, the leaders of Bengal, in public meeting assembled…under the presidency of Maharaja Mannidra Chandra Nundy of Cossimbazar, an eminent landlord of Bengal had already declared “ a general boycott of British goods as a practical protest against the proposed partition.” – Excerpts from Chapter 4, Young India by Lala […]
Read More Home to Kolkata Panorama and much more…“Seven generations of my family were born in Calcutta, there are three Dalrymples sitting inside St John’s graveyard. And a great-great-grandfather’s plaque is on the St John’s Church wall.” – William Dalrymple While the graves might have been shifted to a different location with St. John’s Church compound no longer being a graveyard, the plaques, […]
Read More Wrapping up the St. John’s Church visitThe St. John’s Church is indeed one of a kind. While I gave glimpses of the remarkable church compound in my last post, in this one, we will slowly step in through the foyer and take in the first set of unimaginably amazing artefacts that you might have no idea could exist anymore! Consecrated on […]
Read More St. John’s Church Interiors – Unimaginably historical“We owe to future generations a preserved and unmutilated heritage of Calcutta’s eccentric but exciting old buildings,” – Amartya Sen Having covered most of the Tank Square, as it was called in its heydays, the distant steeple of the St. John’s Church calls…like an appropriate next stop, particularly having mentioned the Black Hole tragedy in […]
Read More “Presidency” Church compounds – A walk through history“Anyway, if Calcutta today suffers in comparison, it’s not really to other cities, but principally to itself and what it used to be. Anyone who has an idea of what Calcutta once was will find that vanished Calcutta the single most insurmountable obstacle to understanding, or sympathising with, the city today.” – Amit Chaudhuri Let’s […]
Read More Tank Square, Black Hole and the Nursery of Calcutta