More than 300 years ago, Job Charnock, an English
tradesman set up a trading post on the banks of the
Ganga along the three-village nucleus. Gradually
Europeans started setting up business and trade
establishments, the moneyed class taking interest in
banking and usury. The East India Company steadily
encroached into matters of state.
The fate of the Nawabi rule was sealed in the
Battle of Plassey and the English went ahead to seize
power, a grip which loosened only 250 years later when
power was transferred from the British Empire to the
Indians.
Independent India has crossed 50 years and these five
decades have seen many miracles.
Calcutta has grown, remains a city of contrasts, a
mix-up of light and shade, a strange medley of ancient
and modern, skyscrapers and Victorian edifices, heaven
of the rich and the poor as seldom found anywhere in
the world.
There is so much to see in this incredible city. A
million people from every corner of India stream
across the massive Howrah Bridge, swarm around the
Hooghly river, flock along the busy avenues, through
its narrow lanes. Then you arrive at the great expanse
of the Maidan, the heart of Calcutta.
Fort William, Victoria Memorial, Raj Bhavan,
Palladian villas and the Botanical Gardens, the busy
streets of Shyambazar, College Street and Kalighat,
bookshops, art galleries, coffee houses all are part
of Calcutta's varied and vibrant shades, the
birthplace of Rabindranath Tagore and cradle of the
Indian Renaissance.
Calcutta's fascination defies analysis. It is an
addiction, an affair of the mind and heart. Anyone who
has lived here can never be happy anywhere else in the
world...
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