Calcutta Travel Guide
Travel guide to Calcutta, India with comprehensive information about events, shopping, and major Calcutta sporting events to help you enjoy your visit more.
Calcutta Overview
Dirty, polluted, and dangerously overcrowded, it's easy to see why most right thinking people take one look at Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) when they arrive, and then start looking for a plane home.
Fetid streets are painfully congested day and night, and their names are changed so often, that not even bus drivers know exactly where they're going half the time. The many palatial buildings that graced the city during the era of the Raj, are decayed and collapsing into themselves, ignored and abused, but still in use since there is nowhere else for people to live and work. Kolkata is a city at breaking point, everywhere is way beyond the capacity that was intended, and most of the older buildings seem to be standing through force of habit rather than physics.
Why then, should any one want to visit? The answer is simple; Kolkata is exciting, colourful and vibrant. A city where alongside the decaying grandeur of colonialism, there are tiny, sometimes understated temples, and the city exists not only as capital of West Bengal, but also, in many ways, as the cultural capital of India. Although Mumbai may well have the film industry, with art, poetry, music, and polemic, Kolkata is quite literally streets ahead of any other city in India.
Top Calcutta Attractions
On the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, in the centre of Calcutta is the Maidan, where most of the main attractions of the city are available within walking distance of each other. The Maidan was formerly jungle, and was cleared to build Fort Williams, and is a great place to escape the bustle of Calcutta's crowded streets for a few hours.
The Maidan is home to the city's main cricket ground - Eden Gardens, where test matches are played, but as with the rest of the city, almost any open area is fair game for cricket, and there are always matches going on, often watched by yogis as they pose and meditate beneath the shade of the trees.
If you want to see the stars, visit the MP Birla Planetarium, which is just about the only place in Calcutta where they are visible.
Shopping in Calcutta
The traditional image of shopping in Calcutta is generally one of markets and bazaars, of little stalls selling sculptures, spices, and textiles, and for the majority of the time, this is absolutely right. There are several large department stores in Calcutta where you can experience a world free of flies and where everything you want is boxed, itemised, and available at a fixed price, but where is the fun in that?
Calcutta Sporting Events
In common with the rest of India, the most popular sport to the exclusion of all others is cricket. From the barbershops and cafes where the intricacies of the game are endlessly discussed, to any open space in the city, where kids get together for a match, cricket is the recreational blood of Calcutta, and one of the most important parts of life as far as aficionados are concerned.
Should you want to join a match, just ask - although the chances are that even even the youngest children will embarrass you!