History

Kolkata's history is intimately related to the British East India Company, which first arrived in 1690, and to British India, of which Calcutta became the capital of in 1772. Job Charnock was widely known as the founder of Calcutta (Sutanuti, Govindapur & Calcutta) but in recent years a number of Indian historians have disputed this claim, arguing that Calcutta occupies the site of an older Indian city, centered around the ancient Kali temple at Kalighat. This claim has been accepted by the Kolkata High Court. The Court has dismissed the name of Job Charnock as the founder of the city and 24 th August as its date of birth. The historic Judgement was based upon an high level Expert Commitee findings. It has been proved that Kolkata had an highly civilized society for centuries before the Europeans first came here.

Whatever its origins, Calcutta flowered as the capital of British India during the nineteenth century, the heyday of the Raj. Calcutta University, the first modern Indian university was founded here in 1857. Calcutta became the center of Indian arts and literature, and the national movement for independence got its start here.

During the British colonial era from 1700 to 1912, when Kolkata (then known as Calcutta) was the capital of British India, Kolkata witnessed a spate of frenzied construction activity of buildings largely influenced by the conscious intermingling of Neo-Gothic, Baroque, Neo-Classical, Oriental and Islamic schools of design. Unlike many north Indian cities, whose construction stresses minimalism, the layout of much of the architectural variety in Kolkata owes its origins to European styles and tastes imported by the British and, to a much lesser extent, the Portuguese and French.

The buildings were designed and inspired by the tastes of the English gentleman around and the aspiring Bengali Babu (literally, a nouveau riche Bengali who aspired to cultivation of English etiquette, manners and custom, as such practices were favourable to monetary gains from the British).

Today, many of these structures are in various stages of decay. Some of the major buildings of this period are well maintained and several buildings have been declared as heritage structures.

Present

India’s second-biggest city is a daily festival of human existence, simultaneously noble and squalid, cultured and desperate. By its old spelling, Calcutta conjures up images of human suffering to most Westerners. But locally, Kolkata is regarded as India’s intellectual and cultural capital. While poverty is certainly in your face, the dapper Bengali gentry continues to frequent grand old gentlemen’s clubs, back horses at the Calcutta Racetrack and tee off at some of India’s finest golf courses.
As the former capital of British India, Kolkata retains a feast of colonial-era architecture, albeit much in a photogenic state of disrepair. Meanwhile urban slums contrast with dynamic new-town suburbs and a rash of air-conditioned shopping malls. Kolkata’s also the ideal place to experience the mild, fruity tang of Bengali cuisine. Friendlier than India’s other metropolises, this is a city you ‘feel’ more than simply visit.

Sights

Victoria Memorial
The monument which draws the largest crowds to Kolkata is Victoria Memorial, a fine specimen of Indo-Sarsenic architecture and Kolkata’s most recognisable landmark. It houses an excellent collection of Raj memorabilia including paintings and manuscripts. The foundation stone of this domed structure was laid by the King George V, the then Prince of Wales in 1906. You can relive the history of colonial India during a dramatic sound and light show with the grand structure in the background.

The Indian Museum
The Indian Museum is the largest museum in Asia and the oldest in the Asia - Pacific region (est. 1814 at the location of the Asiatic Society). The Museum shifted to its present sprawling residence in 1875. Situated on Chowringhee Avenue (now J.L. Nehru Road), it houses perhaps the greatest collection of Indian natural history and an Indian Art collection to rival the Smithsonian Institution and the British Museum. Of specific note are the meteorite hall and dinosaur hall in the Natural History and Geology section, the numismatics section and the collections of Gandhara Art, Burmese woodwork, Mughal miniatures and Tibetan banner sections in the Indian Art section. The Anthropological Survey of India headquarters and the Government College of Art and Craft are housed in the same building. The Geological Survey of India headquarters moved from the museum to Bidhan Nagar recently. The Indian Museum has a library of excellent historical value, with a special focus on the Raj and Kolkata. It is open on all days except Mondays.

The Marble Palace
The Marble Palace is a privately owned collection of eclectic sculptures, paintings and a small menagerie and aviary off Chittaranjan Avenue in North Kolkata. Built by Raja Rajendra Mullick in 1835, it houses, among other treasures two little-publicized Reubens and a Joshua Reynolds, not to mention over 50 varieties of marble which grace the interiors of this mansion.

Birla Industrial & Technological Museum
The Museum was inaugurated in 1959 as the first popular science museum in Asia. Modeled on the Deutsches Museum, it has interactive popular science exhibits and a significant collection of historical industrial holdings in India. Its collection of old gramophones, sound recorders, telephones, steam engines, road rollers and other industrial machinery of the period 1880–1950 is very significant. The museum sports a vintage model of the Rolls-Royce Phantom I make. It also actively organizes summer camps, awareness programs and astronomy observations for school children

The Jorasanko Thakur Bari
This is the ancestral home of the Tagore family and was converted into a museum in 1961. The huge sprawling brick mansions were the cultural hub of Kolkata for close to a century and was a major force in the women's liberation movement. It hosted the first Brahmo wedding and was an important center in the Independence movement. The museum has three large galleries - one of the life and works of Rabindranath, a second gallery about his close relatives such as father Debendranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore and others, and a third gallery on the Bengal Renaissance in general.

National Library of India
Located in Alipore is India's leading library and a public library. It was inaugurated in 1836 by the Governor General Lord Metcalfe by transferring 4675 books from the College of Fort William. Public donations were the main source of books for the library, and by donations of Rupees 300 from proprietors. Dwarakanath Tagore was the first proprietor of the library. The library was initially only partially public, as poor students could use the library for a limited period of time. The Imperial Library was founded in 1891 by merging several libraries like those of the East India College and East India Board. Governor General Lord Curzon initiated the merger of these two libraries into a single Imperial Library in 1903 at the Metcalfe Hall. The goals of the library were to collect every book written about India at any time. The Assistant Librarian of the British Museum John Macfarlane was the first librarian and was succeeded by the first Indian librarian Harinath De. The library was moved to its present quarters in Belvedere Estate, Alipore and renamed the National Library. It is a fully public library which co-ordinates the activities of all other Indian public libraries. True to its goal, any book published in India today has to send one copy to the National library in the spirit of the Library of Congress, United States.

St Paul’s Cathedral
A perfect example of Indo-Gothic architecture, this cathedral is a must-visit during Christmas. The stained glass window is considered to be the best in the country.

Birla Temple
A more recent addition to the city’s pilgrimage points, this temple in south Kolkata attracts all kinds of people, not just pilgrims, through its architectural splendour. Built of marble, this Lord Vishnu temple looks spectacular at night.

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. More interesting than the architecture are the jostling pilgrim queues that snake into the main hall to fling hibiscus flowers at a crowned, three-eyed Kali image.

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. Its centrepiece is the 1938 Ramakrishna Mandir which somehow manages to look like a cathedral, Indian palace and Istanbul’s Aya Sofya all at the same time. Several smaller shrines near the Hooghly riverbank include the Sri Sarada Devi Temple , entombing the guru’s wife.

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. There’s also a decent gallery of paintings by his family and contemporaries, and an exhibition on his links with Japan. The 1930 photo of Tagore taken with Einstein could win a ‘World’s Wildest Hair’ competition. You’d need an hour to see everything but for many casual visitors a brief glimpse is enough.

Barabazar
Finding the following minor religious sights walks you through some of Kolkata’s most vibrantly chaotic alleys teeming with traders, rickshaw couriers and baggage wallahs with impossibly huge packages balanced on their heads. Hidden away amid the paper-merchants of Old China Bazaar St, the Armenian Church of Nazareth was founded in 1707 and is claimed to be Kolkata’s oldest place of Christian worship. The larger 1797 Portuguese-Catholic Holy Rosary Cathedral has eye-catching crown-topped side towers and an interior whose font is festively kitsch.

Neveh Shalome Synagogue
Kolkata’s Jewish community once numbered around 30,000 but these days barely 40 ageing co-religionists turn up at Moghan David Synagogue . Around the corner, the derelict Neveh Shalome Synagogue is almost invisible behind shop stalls, and opposite decrepit Pollock St Post Office (once a grand Jewish school building) is BethEl Synagogue whose colonnaded interior can only be visited with written permission from Nahoum Bakery . Allow two days!

Botanical Gardens
Founded in 1786, the gardens played an important role in cultivating tea long before the drink became a household commodity. Today there’s a cactus house, palm collection, river-overlook and a boating-lake with splendid Giant Amazon Lily pads. The most touted attraction is the 250-year-old ‘world’s largest banyan tree’. That’s a little misleading: the central trunk rotted away in the 1920s, leaving an array of cross-branches and linked aerial roots so it looks more like a copse than a single tree.

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.

Excursions

Shantiniketan (200 km)
Bengal`s revered poet, writer, artist and nationalist Rabindranath Tagore spent a large part of his life at Shantiniketan. The school set up by Tagore in 1901 has developed into the much famed Viswabharati University.

Vishnupur (152 km)
The capital of the Malla kings in the 16th century,Vishnupur has rich historical relics and beautiful terracotta temples. Vishnupur has also gained popularity for its famous terracotta handicraft items and silk.

Murshidabad (219 km)
The City of Murshidabad gained importance at the hands of MurshidKuli Khan. Among numerous interesting monuments the “HazarDuari” Palace or the palace with 1000 doors is most impressive. A grand architectural edifice the palace has now been converted into a museum.

Temperature :
Summer: 41.7-38.1C
Winter: 29.3-9.6 C

Best Time To Visit :
Throughout the year

                                                                                                                                     

                                                                   
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