|
BBD Bagh (Dalhousie Square)
Dalhousie Square (renamed Benoy-Badal-Dinesh Bagh after the three, martyrs of Bengal) was created in the heart of the imperial capital of Calcutta. The tank in the centre, fed by natural springs, is said to have supplied Charnock with drinking water. Historical buildings surround the square. The northern side is occupied by Writers' Building. To the east are commercial houses and the West Bengal Govt Tourist Bureau. On the southern side is Raj Bhavan, residence of the Governor. Beside that are the State Legislative Assembly House and the Calcutta High court. St John's Cathedral, close to Raj Bhavan is the oldest church in Calcutta.
Howrah Bridge
A major landmark, now so much a part of the city that Calcutta is inconceivable without it. Over 2,590 metric tonnes of high tensile steel make up this unique cantilever bridge that joins the main Railway Station (for Calcutta) and the industrial city of Howrah with the city of Calcutta. Opened in 1943 replacing a former pontoon bridge, it is today one of the busiest bridges in the world. There are eight vehicular ways and two footpaths on this bridge on the river Hooghly. As you circle the town by air or come in by train at Howrah station, the bridge dominates.
Shahid Minar
Previously known as Ochterlony Monument, located in the heart of Esplanade. The panoramic view of the city from the top of the monument is really captivating. With 218 steps, this 52 meters high monument consists of a combination of Egyptian base, Syrian column and Turkish copula.
Birla Planetarium
Located at the top end of Chowringhee, the only planetarium in the country, whose dome houses a collection of projectors and optical equipment's expensively imported from East Germany. It is the largest planetarium in South-East Asia and the 2nd. largest planetarium in the world.
Victoria Memorial
The idea of the memorial was Lord Curzon's . Its foundation stone was tapped into place by George V on his princely excursion to Calcutta in 1906, and whatever professional frustrations Sir William may have suffered from at home, he let them all loose in one majestic throw right here. They landed amidst sixty-four acres of lawns, ponds, shrubbery and herbaceous borders and nothing in Calcutta ever had more pleasing or more amply open surroundings. Here, as you walk up one of the drives, past the bronze Victoria on her throne, or the bronze Edward VII on his horse, or the marbel Curzon looking very stern and ruly, you behold something which is more palatial than memorial; a great white cliff which in Calcutta's light hurts eyes, with its vaguely Renaissance side ending at each corner in a sort of minaret, with its entrance arches soaring through two high story's, with its entire rambling, derivative, nostalgic and impressive rectangle dominated by a colonnaded dome which is itself capped by three tons of bronzed and victorious angel.
It echoes inside, as it was doubtless meant to echo for ever and a day. It echoes most resonantly under the dome, in the Queen's Hall whose walls have been deeply graven with the text of Victoria's proclamation of herself as Empress. But reverberations from those illustrious days pursue the visitor to the Memorial wherever he goes along its galleries, its armouries, and its ennobled chambers. Many of India's old rulers are represented here in stone, quite often dressed in Roman togas, like Warren Hastings and Lord Cornwallis. And where they have not been immortalised with a chisel they have most certainly not been forgotten with a brush and a palette of oils. The Queen herself, quite naturally, comes first in all things. You have her in paint at her coronation, at her marriage, at the baptism of her son and heir, at her first and second jubilee celebrations in her cathedral church, at her son's wedding, at her residence of Frogmore, and at exercise with dear old John Brown holding the horse's reins. You have one or two of her possessions: the pianoforte (that's what the label says) at which she received tuition in childhood, the writing desk and chair occupied for daily correspondence at Windsor, the last letter she wrote to her people in India thanking them in person for their sympathy on the loss of her grandson in the Boer War ("she cannot deny that she feels a good deal shaken..."). You make the unexpected discovery that from her favorite Indian attendant, Abdul Karim, she learned Hindusthani.
There are portraits of other Great Britons who were in Calcutta at one time or another; Macaulay, of course, and Kipling and Bishop Heber and William Hickey with the closest of his sixty three servants and his little dog. From time to time an Indian face is displayed without discrimination among these alien images- Keshub Chandra Sen, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Rabindranath Tagore and his enterprising grandfather Dwarkanath. There are documents, including the forgery which had Nuncomar judicially executed.
Jorasa(n)ko Tagore House (Thakurbari)
The world famous poet Rabindranath Tagore was born and died in this house. Located at the junction of the Chitpur Road and the Vivekananda Road, it is the headquarters of Rabindrabharati University, a famous center for the study of the Indian Arts. There is a museum too in memory of the great Tagore family.
Marble Palace
This, indisputably, is the richest, the quaintest, the eeriest, the most haphazard and the most ridiculous, the most astonishing and the most lovable and almost the saddest relic in what, by about the start of the nineteenth century, was beginning to be called the City of Palaces. You trace it- with some difficulty, down a side street among the pullulating alleys off Chittaranjan Avenue. The air reeks down here, like so many of the central thoroughfare's, the worn-out engine fumes mixed up with half a dozen varieties of decay. The pushing and shoving and sidestepping past rickshaws and cows and people is almost as concentrated as anywhere. The noise is Calcutta's usual symphony of honks and clatters and clangs and rumbles and shouts, with transistored obligators on the sitar. It feels and looks and is just about an unsavoury as it's past. But in the middle of this towering mess you find, unbelievably, a real garden of maybe of an acre with a Palladian mansion set square in the centre. This could easily be a luxurious pocket in Rome, not Calcutta, and there is a fountain in the garden that would not be out of place in the Piazza Navona or at the bottom of the Spanish steps; it has Neptune figures brandishingconch shells, with indeterminate water beasts gaping at them from the surrounding pool and four nubile naiads upholding a classical urn on top of the central column.
There are greater surprises inside the house. You enter a courtyard first, which is topped by a high gallery. The floor is patterned with diamond shapes and lozenges of multicolored marbles, the white walls are embellished with swaging in Wedgwood blue, there are wonderfully cool-looking maidens and men cut in stone, wrapped in togas and standing high on plinths. There are couple of urns with a variety of aspidistra growing from the bowls. And there is a menagerie. Out in the garden, pelicans and peacocks, mallard and teal have been poking and prodding at the lawns or duckling and dozing in the pool. In this courtyard there are scarlet macaws from Burma tethered to perches, albino mynahs from the back of Bihar whistling in cages, and pinioned parakeets from Northern Australia making a mess on the statues.
Beyond lie apartments and galleries, and in these the Marble Palace becomes a fantasy brought to earth. They are full, as no building was ever filled before, with art and objects from Bangkok to Bristol and back, though almost everything seems to have been picked up from the auctions and markets and dispossessed households of Europe. There is a very old Queen Victoria in plaster standing large as life by the main stairway and a very young Queen Victoria in oak , somewhat larger , dominating a red marble room where another squadron of busts glare at her from shadows. There is marble everywhere, in ninety different varieties it is said, transported across the seas by the ton to provide floors and wall panels and table tops.
National Library
India's the largest library; contains huge collection of rare books and manuscripts.
Fort William
Citadel of Calcutta . With the permission of the Nawab of Bengal, this fort was built between 1696 and 1702 by the British East India Company and named after King William III of England. In 1756 the fort was taken by the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-dullah. In 1757 East India Company regained their power and demolished this fort and they started reconstruction of the fort. The new fort was completed in 1773 and it is still there.
Academy of Fine Arts
Site of visual arts and Bengali theater. Permanent galleries include medieval Bengali and Indian miniature paintings, textiles and excellent specimens of old hand-woven Dacca and Baluchari saris. A Jamini Roy collection and Desmond Doig's pen and ink sketches of Calcutta's nostalgic landmark, are also on view. The Rabindra gallery contains paintings and manuscripts of the great man of letter.(Ph : 2484302)
Science City
On Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, Science City is an area of knowledge and adventure. Science City has Space Theater, Space Flight, Dinosaurs Alive, Dynamotion, Life in Water, a world of Insects and Reptiles, Walkthrough Aviary, Butterfly corner, Convention Centre, four seminar halls and 4 halls, Mini Auditorium, Musical fountain and many others. Open daily from 10 am to 10 pm. Phone : 3439895.
Netaji Bhawan
where Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose lived and worked. His personal belongings are on exhibition here.
|
| Testimonials |
Signup | Careers| Link to us
