The University of Calcutta is one of the first institutions in Asia to be established as a multidisciplinary and secular western style university and it often lures us to delve into its origins. Every nook and corner of the great institution is filled with nostalgia and memories of students and history of the institute’s inception….
Category: Places of Interest
The Great Eastern Hotel – From Origins to Present Day
In 1840, the flag of the East India Company fluttered over the Writers’ Building, the British gentry came to the Townhall in horse drawn carriages to attend concerts and Calcutta was among the frontline cities of the world, where fortune seekers and entrepreneurs, artists and artisans, men of letters and men with a vision came…
The Oriental Seminary
In Kolkata, the day of Rabindra Jayanti in the month of May is marked with flowers, songs and recitations. Every street corner, club and school is decked with white blossoms and resonates with the plaintive tune of “Hey pochishe Baishakh/ Chiro nutonere dilo dak”. The Oriental Seminary, an old school at the far north end…
The Church Map of Kolkata
Numerous European Churches dot the map of Kolkata, thanks to its history full of British, French, Portuguese and Dutch cultures. After Kolkata became the erstwhile capital of British India, St John’s Church, on Council House Street was one of the earliest churches to be erected by the East India Company. The construction began in 1784…
Victoria Memorial – Kolkata’s White Beauty
“Let us, therefore, have a building, stately, spacious, monumental and grand, to which every newcomer in Calcutta will turn, to which all the resident population, European and Native, will flock, where all classes will learn the lessons of history, and see revived before their eyes the marvels of the past.” – Lord Curzon, Viceroy of…
Archeological Survey of India
We have learnt many things from the British. Appreciating our own heritage is among them. When European orientalists began to take interest in the culture and literature of Asia, a realization of our own antiquity dawned on us. The beginnings of an archaeological sensibility The Asiatic Society was founded by Sir William Jones in January…