On August 16, 1897, Hridaynath Ghosh, manager of Kathalguri Tea Estate in what is now Jalpaiguri district in West Bengal, was found brutally murdered in his bungalow, his throat slit wide open. Topping the list of suspects was his former domestic help Ranjan Singh alias
In an age when misinformation and fake news have become part of everyday life, this story would be commonplace. Nearly a century ago, however, news was not taken as casually as it is now, and certainly not when it involved a personage of the stature
It was French journalist and novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr who in 1849 first coined the saying, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (the more things change, the more they remain the same). He could easily have been talking about what is said to
Filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak was often found here at a table, indulging in heated arguments with his friends, seen walking out in a huff, only to return to the 150-year-old drinking hole of Calcutta, tucked in one corner. As the oldest bar of the city, Chhota
The sleepy cluster of red brick apartments tucked away on Chittaranjan Avenue is home to the last group of Anglo Indians living in Kolkata. The forlorn buildings look dilapidated without maintenance but are decked up in utmost yuletide spirit without cosmetic ado. Just adjacent to
COVID-19 has not only snatched many of our near and dear ones but has had an impact on some iconic landmarks of Kolkata from book shops to restaurants, to cinema halls that marked Kolkata’s heritage for ages. They are shutting down. One to join the
Did ever 92-year-old Mohan Tiwari dream in his wildest dreams that he has to pull down the curtains of his heritage book shop on the same year when we celebrate Satyajit Ray’s borth centenary? Mohan’s Books & Magazines, opposite Lighthouse Cinema, used to be a
Even if you don’t know it by name, the nearly 100-foot tall, graceful white tower is instantly recognisable to any Kolkatan as a BBD Bag landmark, next to Writers’ Building, and looking straight down Old Court House Street. Visible from a long distance even today,
Babul mora naihar chhooto hi jaye… the poet, the singer, the musician and the Shatranjke Khiladi. He was dethroned and uprooted from the place he loved – Lucknow and was sent by the British to Kolkata on exile. Jab chhorchale Lucknow Nagri, kahehalke hum por kya
In 2012, an unlabelled size-nine shoebox was discovered in the archives of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) that yielded a treasury of glass plate photographs of India, dating more than a century ago. The rare and fragile glass