… is a beautiful place!
“… 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“…কলিকাতা শোনে নাকো চলার খেয়ালে; নৃত্যের নেশা তার স্তম্ভে দেয়ালে।আমি মনে মনে ভাবি চিন্তা তো নাই, কলিকাতা যাক নাকো সোজা বোম্বাই।দিল্লি লাহোরে যাক, যাক না আগরা – মাথায় পাগ্ড়ি দেব পায়েতে নাগ্রা।কিম্বা সে যদি আজ বিলাতেই ছোটে ইংরেজ হবে সবে বুট-হ্যাট্-কোটে।কিসের শব্দে ঘুম ভেঙে গেল যেই- দেখি, কলিকাতা আছে কলিকাতাতেই॥”– রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর “…Kolikata keeps walking […]
Read More Of Letters, Life Insurance and a Secretariat…“In the streets of Calcutta I sometimes imagine myself a foreigner, and only then do I discover how much is to be seen, which is lost so long as its full value in attention is not paid.” – Rabindranath Tagore And who could say it better, than him? How often do we roam around the […]
Read More Connected and insured under the watch of the Knight Grand CommanderThis has been looooooooooooong due! Manjit took me on this walk in February 2018, and here I am with half of 2020 gone! Not that it can be an excuse but 2018 had been a mad year and then it just slipped off the radar! And yet, as I started going through some old pictures, […]
Read More Calcutta… the London that was!Thought translation of আমি by Rabindranath Tagore, written on 29 May 1936 at Santiniketan By the power of my concsiousness, emerald got its green and coral red.The force of my vision illumined every corner of the vast spread, that is the sky!In my love for the rose, I uttered “Pretty” – and oh, how handsome […]
Read More Mind over matter or matter over mind????