Day 9 Mon Oct 20
WEST BENGAL SOUTH (Kolkata, Kharagpur, Durgapur, Asansol)
I spent the day talking to a Vancouver traveller, shopped a bit, ate, and slept to recover from my two hectic days of travel through three regions.
This was the first day of Diwali, one of the biggest holidays in India. It celebrates Lakshmi and Ganesha, the two most important and widely prayed to gods in India. Xmas tree lights drape down from many buildings and houses, fireworks are continuous and votive materials (Lakshmi figures and flowers) dominate every shop. Drummers play.
ON Central City Hostel for the 2nd night.
Day 10 Tue Oct 21
SANTINIKETAN WHS is a neighbourhood of Bolpur town 152 km north of Kolkata. It was established by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, and later expanded by his son, Rabindranath Tagore whose vision became what is now a university town with the creation of Visva-Bharati.
History. In 1863, Debendranath Tagore leased 20 acres. He built a guest house there and named it Shantiniketan (the abode of peace).
Bolpur grew as Shantiniketan grew. Inspired by The Crystal Palace in London, Debendranath constructed a 60-foot × 30-foot hall for Brahmo prayers. The roof was tiled and the floor had white marble, but the rest of the structure was made of glass. From its earliest days, it was a great attraction for people from all around.
Rabindranath Tagore first visited Shantiniketan in 1878 when he was 17 years old. In 1913, Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize in Literature. It was a new feather in the cap of the Tagore family which was the leading family contributing to the enrichment of life and society in Bengal. Founded in 1921 by Rabindranath Tagore, Visva Bharati was declared to be a central university and an institute of national importance in 1951.
Rabindra Bhavana, founded in 1942, just after the death of the poet, is the focal point of Visva Bharati. It has a museum, archives, library and other units. It houses a major part of Rabindranath’s manuscripts, correspondence, paintings and sketches, 40,000 volumes of books and 12,000 volumes of bound journals, photographs and numerous items associated with the poet’s life. It was established by the poet’s son, Rathindranath Tagore, as a memorial museum and research centre for Tagore studies.
The Uttarayana Complex features five houses built by Rabindranath, gardens, Udayan is the most imposing house for important guests. The Ashram Complex has the Santiniketan Griha and the beautiful stained glass prayer hall and beautiful frescoes
Visva Bharati is a centre for culture with arts, language, humanities, music etc. The landscape of Shantiniketan is dotted with sculptures by Ramkinkar Baij (1906–1980), larger-than-life figures of Santals.
My experience. I took the WBCT bus (booked on Red Bus) from Esplanade Bus terminal (their stand is on the far west of the terminal and hard to find to Bolpur @06:45-10:30, 4 hours, 375R. In Bolpur, the bus drops you off and picks you up on the road opposite the Indian Oil station, not inside the Bolpur bus terminal. I took the same bus back to Kolkata 15:10-19:00.
From Bolpur take a tuk-tuk to the museum and a tuk tuk back, 5 km, 100R going and 40R return.
Rabindra Bhavana (Shantiniketan Museum). This is really the House and Biographical Museum about Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). The museum has extensive story boards on his life, his books, music and art, his Nobel Peace Prize, his many awards (honorary degree from Oxford and other universities and gifts given to him. He was unwell and Oxford came to Shaniniketan to award it to him, his many travels all over the world, especially Japan and China, the many dignatories he met (including Albert Einstein several times) and a lot about the Tagore family. The gallery repeats some (personal items) and has many large photographs of all the people involved in his life. Part of the admission is seeing the 5 houses on the property, his car, rose garden and some lovely sculpture (Meija is both bow and arrow). !000R!!!! (The most expensive museum in India).
The college campus is across the street but only accessible by the public on Sundays. There was a very nice (and very aggressive) Indian woman outside who thought it ridiculous that we couldn’t see the campus, got on the phone to the head of the place and we had a private tour of the lovely campus (they wanted to charge me another 1000R to see the campus, I refused and I eventually saw it for free. The campus is mostly grass, big trees and many types of small buildings (academic 15, guest houses 11, hostels 23 and several heritage buildings). It originally had no walls and unique outdoors teaching areas (small ovals with a seat for the instructor and the students sat on mats), a lovely bell, a tea house with nice murals, a huge sports field for football and cricket, his father’s original house and the two houses he lived in when he wrote Gitanjali, the book he got his prize for. He wrote much more but this appears at the museum that this is the only thing he wrote.
The glass house is only open on Wednesdays and requires a white set of clothes.
ON Central City Hostel for the 3rd night.
KOLKATA
Day 11 Wed Oct 22
SUNDARBANS NP WHS. I tried to arrange a trip to Sundarbans NP, but it was impossible in the three days I had available.
This was my big day to have a walk/tuktuk about to see Kolkata.
Birla Mandir. A huge Hindu temple, all white with 3 towers. Closed 11-4:30. It is dedicated to Vishnu avatars such as Rama and Krishna. On Janmashtami, the birthday of Krishna, devotees come from far away places to pay their respect to the deities. It was built from 1970-96.
The main temple houses statues of deities Krishna and Radha. The left side temple shikhar (dome) houses goddess Durga, the Hindu goddess of Shakti, the power. The right side dome of the temple houses Shiva in meditation mode. uilt of white marble bears resemblance to the renowned Lingaraj Temple of Bhubaneswar. It has pictorial depiction of scriptures of Bhagavad Gita in its stone engravings.
Netaji Bhawan. A memorial and research center about the Indian nationalist “Netaji” Subhas Chandra Bose. The house was built by Bose’s father in 1909.
Bose escaped from house arrest at Netaji Bhawan in 1941 and fled to Berlin. After that, he traveled to Japan-occupied Southeast Asia by submarine (German U-boat U-180 and Japanese submarine I-29), organized Indian National Army, and fought against British Raj with the Imperial Japanese Army.
The house has bedrooms, and an imposing study. Lovely marble Buddha. Many photos and an extensive description of the Great Escape. 50R House and Biographical Museums.
Birla Science and Technology Museum. Exhibits on ancient astronomy, India’s space program, science “experiments” and a children’s section. 60R
South Park Street Cemetery. Established in 1767 and closed in 1830, this is the cemetery of the Brtish in Kolkata. Many famous people are interred here and there are many large mauseleums and obelisks, most looking a little run down. The most prominent is a huge white tapering cone of William Jones (d 1797), the creator of the Aisiatic Museum. 25R The Dark Side
Nehru Children’s Museum. Three floors of dolls of the world with many unrealistic exotic costumes (for example, I couldn’t recognize the costume of the USA). The second floor has many vehicles and more dolls. The third has Ganesh icons. The best are the approximately 120 dioramas of Indian folk lore on the 2nd and 3rd floors. 60R
The 42. A very slender rectangular sky scraper, mostly glass and reinforced concrete. Lovely large balconies on each side. Architectural Delights
Museum of Asiatic Society. A very unusual space, and register 5 times to enter!!!!!, check your bag twice (the usual Indian buracratic bullshit. I went up to he library first where there is nothing of interest. On the second floor are many glass cases with ancient books: palm leaf books, an old Quran, collection of poems of Tibet, Burma gold laquered tin sheets, copper plates of the 7th century, drawings of fish by Collin Mackenzie. A Bengal Atlas, and the Editct of Asoka from 250 BC and more. Free. History, Culture, National and City Museums
The Elgin Fairlawn, 1783. A small older hotel lined with photos, many of the famous people who stayed here, a nice dining room, small bar and a tea lounge. about a full block off the main street. Hospitality Legends
The Oberoi Grand, Has been closed for about 1.5 years. From the gate, it had nice yellow stone. The front against the street are blocks of clothes stores. Hospitality Legends
Smaranika Tram Museum. This consists of one trolley car. Half the car is devoted to a tea cafe. The other half is the museum lined with narrow wood “slat” seats. The history of the tram service in Kolkata is: first tram 1873, restarted in 1880, steam 1882, 1902 electricity, 1920 buses (DC the restarted in 1925, 1982 steel trams, 1992 buses restarted, 2208 polycarbonate trams, 2013 AC. There were examples of tickets, the punches used to validate the tickets, conductors hats, badges and old photos. 10R
I then got completely lost in a series of circles and roads where Google Maps seemed to never show the right way.
Great Eastern Hotel (LaLit Great Eastern). In 1846, was the Aukland Hote, Great Eastern in 1865. Was the first luxury hotel in Kolkata and the oldest continuously operating hotel in India (185 years). The city’s elite and many celebrities stayed here including Queen Elizabeth, Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain. It has been renovated several times so has elements of Victorian, Edwardian and Modern. This is a very modern luxury hotel. I wandered around and did my usual bathroom trip. There are many restaurants. Hospitality Legends
High Court is the oldest High Court in India on Esplanade Row. It has jurisdiction over the state of West Bengal and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The High Court building’s design is somewhat based on the Lakenhal (Cloth Hall) in Ypres in Flanders, Belgium.
It formally opened on 1 July 1862. The building structure was designed by Walter Long Bozzi Granville. Despite the name of the city having officially changed from Calcutta to Kolkata in 2001, the Court retained the old name. Architectural Delights
I was pretty exhausted by this time after a long day with many significant walks.
