Kolkata-A veritable wonderland of
flavour, literature and, mostly sweets This city is more relaxed than some of its modern Indian counterparts, and residents claim a strong relationship to its colonial past
India’s rivers are central to the life of its people and the Hooghly River, a 160-mile branch of the Ganges that runs through the city of Kolkata in West Bengal, is no different. In the late afternoon, I walked to Babu Ghat, and onto the broad concrete slipway that descended into the water, where a few moored boats bobbed slowly and men and children bathed in underclothes.The sticky heat had finally begun to break and people were out sitting on the banks of the Hooghly, chatting, eating, or just watching the sun glitter on the water as it began its descent. A young man approached me and, apropos of nothing, asked if I liked Kolkata. When I replied yes, he nodded and said, “Kolkata is the heart of India.”After four days in Kolkata (or the Anglicized “Calcutta”), the capital of West Bengal and known by the nickname, City of Joy, it was difficult to argue.