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.
Rajbhavan
Aurobindo
Bhawan
Birla
Academy of Arts and Culture
Kala
Mandir
Mahajati
Sadan
Gorky
Sadan
Rabindra
Sarovar
Sisir
Mancha
Rabindra
Sadan
Nandan
