Heritage

During the first few days of the lockdown, Raghbir Singh and some others served 500 meals in and around south Calcutta. Thereafter, they lost count and it was never the point in any case.The 30-year-o...

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In the book, The Oxford India Gandhi, there is a reference to how erstwhile Bengal chief minister, the late Jyoti Basu, came calling on the Mahatma here. The excerpt reads: “...We said we were Commu...

In the heart of Calcutta lies a quaint time-bubble, the Marble Palace. I walked in to see and feel what the walls, pillars and statues of the Marble Palace had seen through the many generations they h...

As the metal clinks against the glass, and the buzz mixed with laughter rises from the low tables covered in maroon or yellow tablecloths, and the shaded lamps throw light on black- and-white old Calc...

Since time immemorial when man hunted for his food, it has been an irredeemable fact that people have to eat to live. However, this same adage does not hold true for all Bengalis who live to eat! Whet...

I have a friend who, as it turns out, is a mystic. She named her cat Tipu Sultan. It was only upon visiting Srirangapatna a few months ago, about half-an-hour away from Mysore, that I realised that T...

Two decades ago, a kilometre-long stretch of north Calcutta — Bidhan Sarani, formerly Cornwallis Street — had as many as 10 cinemas. Uttara, Sree, Rupbani, Radha, Purnasree, Bidhusree, Mitra, Mina...

What would Winston Churchill make of Priya? Or, for that matter, Navina, another cinema hall on the southern fringes of Calcutta, once the second city of the Empire? The question, although quirky, is ...

René Goscinny, the witty comic book writer who created Asterix along with the illustrator, Albert Uderzo, was wrong. The Gauls are not crazy; but visitors to Gaul can be loony. Maurice, a cockerel, w...