A Trip to Kolkata

In May, 2010, I visited Kolkata (erstwhile Calcutta), the first capital of British India and an important center of commercial and "intellectual renaissance" that swept India during the seventeenth century and the early eighteenth century.

Kolkata, inspite being forced into oblivion as a city is like none . However, inspite its seemingly lack lustre urban space and under-developed environ Kolkata has a legacy like none other. I have been visiting the city off and on, about once in a few years. What stuns me in this city everytime I visit it is the warmth and intellectual fervour of its natives that is just not visible in any other city in India. The Bengalis, inspite falling back in infrastructural development behind North India, carry the same intellectual fervour and softness they are well-known for.

During my visit I stayed in the heart of Kolkata in the HHI Hotel and spend a great deal of time meeting people and observing the changes that the information economy has bought. During the few days I spent in Kolkata I also witnessed many things, the campaign for municipality elections, the ailing tramways, the charm of Park Street, the rich blend of the old and the new in the urbanscape. I also met a couple of respondents whose life was transformed by the emerging technologies, so much so that they were getting sucked in a technological "blackhole". Is this our future now?


My room inside the HHI Asim Choudhury Kolkata Silchar The Glamourous Park Street


The view from my hotel room Asim PhD Scholar Delhi UThe Trams in the city


Malls and complexes dot the city outskirts Asim SilcharAn election rally in a street corner