[BITList] Fwd: [INDIA-BRITISH-RAJ] Best for colonial splendour: Calcutta

[John Feltham]

Begin forwarded message:

Snipped from

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/asia/best-for-colonial-splendour-calcutta-1545851.html

Saturday, 7 February 2009

Go to Calcutta, the most delightful and humane place in the
whole of India. It will revitalise your weary heart and brain.

Oh! Calcutta! (now renamed Kolkata) was described by an
Indian writer as "a city of furious, creative energy". It is indeed
exceptionally creative, artistic, political, alive, but furiously
so? No, not at all. In spite of its vast population - 13m and
growing - Calcutta exudes serenity, intellectual profundity
and contentment, priceless in today's frenetic world.

The scent of Empire lingers on. Citizens here accept their
past with courtesy; Calcutta is an Anglophile hub where
bus drivers recite Shakespeare and the newspapers
follow life in the old country. Calcuttans cherish the many
extravagant symbols of the Raj. The most conspicuous
is the Victoria Monument, a white marble, crazy fusion
of Mogul and Italian Renaissance styles. Around it is the
Maidan, a vast green with snooty clubs whose members
play golf, bowl and ride horses. But now shepherds also
graze flocks there and lovers shyly flirt under the trees.
St Paul's Cathedral nearby is another big statement.
Many more such sights intrigue you as you negotiate
the city.

All Taj hotels evoke the Raj in their ambience, décor
and service. I sank easily back into the opulent torpor
of those times, albeit now with air conditioning.

There is a hard edge to Calcutta too, long a site of some
appalling historical encounters. Areas here were once
demarcated "white town" and "black town"; men were
publicly hanged for plotting to kill Governor General
Dalhousie, and white men, women and children perished
after they were stuffed into an airless cell by the king
Siraj-ud-Daulah (the actual facts of the black hole of
Calcutta are much disputed).  [snip]
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--- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar



ooroo

If you don't hear the knock of opportunity - build a door.

Anon.



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