Nowhere else in India do people engulf you as they do in Calcutta. From the moment you step off your train or plane, and begin the ride into the city, you will be surrounded by hundreds of thousands of them. Your car or taxicab will plough into the slow crowds like some tropical icebreaker. The…
21 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited Calcutta, Nov 21, Reuters – The six Bengalis splashing around a fire hydrant inches from cursing bus-drivers in the evening traffic are worried about their daily bath. “Election? What election? I have a holiday on polling day and plan to visit my mother,” says Barun…
The old city is giving way to a new bright-eyed metropolis Thirty years ago, a dishevelled man leaned across and shouted at me in the smoke-filled, raucous Olympia bar on Calcutta’s Park Street: “Calcutta is forever!” Outside, Ambassador taxis were inching along the flooded street. The electricity would go the moment you hung up your…