Opportunity Café, India’s First Non-Profit Café, DumDum, Kolkata Hard to believe right? We usually associate cafes with profit-making businesses, huge franchises and capitalist mindsets. However, India’s first non-profit café is here in town, founded by Sumanta Singha Ray and Siddhant Ghosh. This café is an outlet of
Doyen of Bengali cinema, he was a matinee idol, a living legend, the ‘Mahanayak’ who dominated the world of Bengali movies for decades during those ‘golden days of yore.’ Film actor, director, producer, singer par excellence, a perfect gentleman, a charmer and heartthrob of millions,
As we prepare to enter 2025, we also need to take note of an important centenary just past. For it was in 1923 that ‘Calcutta Aerodrome’ was conceived, with the first flights landing here in 1924. Sadly, the more important centenary actually passed by fairly quietly
The Kalighat Kali Mandir is a classic example of Bengal architecture which is a structural emulation of the mud and thatch-roofed huts of villages. Kalighat’s main temple is a four-sided building with a truncated dome. A smaller identically-shaped projection caps this domed structure. Each sloping side of
The Government House in the 19th century, an artist's impression What was a New Year’s party like in Calcutta of the 18th century? As 2025 dawns upon us, we thought it might be fun to travel back in time and look at what was a quintessentially
Back in the 50s or 60s, it was not such a common sight to find a Chinaman in your neighborhood. A Mrinal Sen movie “Neel Akasher Neechey” (1958) highlighted the agony of the Chinaman in a land where he is an alien. It also revealed
Saldanha Bakery, one of the oldest and most affordable bakeries of Kolkata have not just survived more than 80 years in the city, it is also a business that is run by three generations of women entrepreneurs ---Grandmother Mona Saldanha, mother Deborah Alexandra and daughter
The formation of the Calcutta Club was due to an incident that took place at the Bengal Club when well-known Bengali entrepreneur Rajendranath Mookherjee was the guest of the then Governor of Bengal, Sir John Woodburn. Sir John was asked to take his Indian guest
“Iam the most devious person in Calcutta. My job is to go out and seduce people so that a no turns into a yes,” declares the man who says he doesn’t live in Kolkata…Kolkata lives in him. Through his 60-odd years on this earth, Mudar Patherya
Kolkata’s conventional ‘office para’ that developed around Tank Square during British rule was christened Dalhousie Square and later, after Independence, named Benoy-Badal-Dinesh Bag (BBD Bag) in memory of the three martyrs who laid down their lives for the country. Just opposite to Raj Bhavan’s main gate, the narrow