Kolkata, the age-less charm.
Just a sheer thought of Kolkata brings about a lullaby steams of nostalgia in my mind. And I become an epicure who meanders through the Kolkata roads, lanes, by-lanes, buildings, parks, and even filth and stenches. Is it just because that I am born and brought up at Kolkata, evokes this kind of stoic emotions in me? Or am I true to the judgement of its charm as compared to other cosmopolitan Indian cities?
There is no denying that Kolkata is the first and earliest cities in India which can rightly be termed as a cosmopolitan in true sense. History says that before Mumbai became Bombay, Chennai became Madras, or Bengaluru became Bangalore, Kolkata was already in its adolescence as Calcutta. Brush aside Delhi, as it was at its neo-natal stage then.
The Britishers then were far-sighted and pragmatic in seeing Kolkata as its most viable center of administrative and trade headquarter. Favourable climate, topography, inland water system, proximity to sea, human-index, all favoured their decision to built it as a modern city. Thus three villages of Sutanuti, Gobindopur and Kolikata, amalgamated to form Calcutta in the late seventeenth century.
Since then Kolkata has seen it all. Like a roller-coaster Bollywood film. It rose to an epitome of high aristocracy and then with a harsh, crude political stroke in the early twentieth century, the Britishers themselves rob Calcutta of its sacrilege and made New Delhi the capital of India. Calcuttans must bring about a charge of regicide to the British administrators, where one kills its own king. But who cares! Idiosyncrasy of Calcutta had begun from thereon. The infallibility of Calcutta had turn-coated into eccentricity of Kolkata.
But Kolkata is not a city to be ignored, by no means. Kolkata city is like a folklore, Inimitable. Its stoic slow-paced charm is inimitably unique . If Mumbai is a city of insatiable mercenary, Bangalore an infallible greed, New Delhi a predatory egoist, then Kolkata is an effeminate Samaritan. Kolkata like an sipping an old wine on a midsummer evening lounging on a rocking chair.
There is no denying that Kolkata is the first and earliest cities in India which can rightly be termed as a cosmopolitan in true sense. History says that before Mumbai became Bombay, Chennai became Madras, or Bengaluru became Bangalore, Kolkata was already in its adolescence as Calcutta. Brush aside Delhi, as it was at its neo-natal stage then.
The Britishers then were far-sighted and pragmatic in seeing Kolkata as its most viable center of administrative and trade headquarter. Favourable climate, topography, inland water system, proximity to sea, human-index, all favoured their decision to built it as a modern city. Thus three villages of Sutanuti, Gobindopur and Kolikata, amalgamated to form Calcutta in the late seventeenth century.
Since then Kolkata has seen it all. Like a roller-coaster Bollywood film. It rose to an epitome of high aristocracy and then with a harsh, crude political stroke in the early twentieth century, the Britishers themselves rob Calcutta of its sacrilege and made New Delhi the capital of India. Calcuttans must bring about a charge of regicide to the British administrators, where one kills its own king. But who cares! Idiosyncrasy of Calcutta had begun from thereon. The infallibility of Calcutta had turn-coated into eccentricity of Kolkata.
But Kolkata is not a city to be ignored, by no means. Kolkata city is like a folklore, Inimitable. Its stoic slow-paced charm is inimitably unique . If Mumbai is a city of insatiable mercenary, Bangalore an infallible greed, New Delhi a predatory egoist, then Kolkata is an effeminate Samaritan. Kolkata like an sipping an old wine on a midsummer evening lounging on a rocking chair.
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