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About
Calcutta Tours
 Calcutta - State
Capital of West Bengal. At the beginning of this century,
Calcutta was the capital of British India. The city is famous
for its culture; films, poetry, art and dance. The Victoria
Memorial is a splendid architectural monument in, white
marble, modelled after the Taj Mahal, was built in the memory
of Queen Victoria. Victoria Memorial houses a fantastic
collection of rare memorabilia from colonial days. Brass
cannons, wrought iron streetlamps and imposing statues
recreate history. With an overwhelming 10 million people,
Calcutta is busy and bustling.
Something is always happening -
whether it is soccer, religious celebrations, concerts,
theatre or a political demonstration, Calcutta is always on
the move. A city of love and warmth, sorrow and despair,
dreams and hopes, poverty and squalor, grandeur and glory,
Calcutta is compelling, effervescent, teeming with life and
traditions a medley of moods, styles, cultures, politics,
industry and commerce.
More than 300 years ago, Job
Charnock, an English tradesman set up a trading post on the
banks of the Ganga along the three-village nucleus. Gradually
Europeans started setting up business and trade
establishments, the moneyed class taking interest in banking
and usury. The East India Company steadily encroached into
matters of state.
The fate of the Nawabi rule was sealed in
the Battle of Plassey and the English went ahead to seize
power, a grip which loosened only 250 years later when power
was transferred from the British Empire to the Indians.
Independent India has crossed 50 years and these five decades
have seen many miracles. Calcutta has grown, remains a city of
contrasts, a mix-up of light and shade, a strange medley of
ancient and modern, skyscrapers and Victorian edifices, heaven
of the rich and the poor as seldom found anywhere in the
world.
There is so much to see in this incredible city. A million people from every corner of India stream across the massive Howrah Bridge, swarm around the Hooghly river, flock along the busy avenues, through its narrow lanes. Then you arrive at the great expanse of the Maidan, the heart of Calcutta. Fort William, Victoria Memorial, Raj Bhavan, Palladian villas and the Botanical Gardens, the busy streets of Shyambazar, College Street and Kalighat, bookshops, art galleries, coffee houses all are part of Calcutta's varied and vibrant shades, the birthplace of Rabindranath Tagore and cradle of the Indian Renaissance. Calcutta's fascination defies analysis. It is an addiction, an affair of the mind and heart. Anyone who has lived here can never be happy anywhere else in the world...
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