Ten Walks In Calcutta

A useful guide for anyone visiting Calcutta, especially first-timers, this is a book that even old residents of the metropolis will find a treasure trove of detail and history. From a brief social, political, economic and cultural account of the city's growth, the book takes the reader through ten walks covering Calcutta that capture the essence of its people and places, its sights and sounds, its temples and ghats. The city boasts of a long list of luminaries - Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, his disciple Vivekananda, Noble laureates Rabindranath Tagore and Ronald Ross (who conducted most of his research here) to name a few. One of the walks takes the visitor through the BBD Bag area where the British settled and which formed the hub of social life in those days. Another one is along the east bank of the Hooghly River - an integral part of the city - to the Eden Gardens cricket stadium and down to the Bhagwati temple build almost two hundred years ago. Calcutta, dubbed the City of Palaces' in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries comes alive in this book.