Facets Of India: Kolkata Is Calcutta
"When you walk down the street in any part of Calcutta, the place resonates with sights and names that evoke its imperial past,'' writes poet and columnist Hariharan Balakrishnan.
When you walk down the street in any part of Calcutta, the place resonates with sights and names that evoke its imperial past. So do some of several landmarks that still exist. It is still a beautiful city. The people are as passionate about it, as they are about many things that belong to their past. When you talk to them person to person in their homes or in compatible company, you see them as they really are. You feel what they feel, though you may differ with them when it comes to a wide angle view.
Calcutta was the capital of India till 1911 when the British made Delhi the seat of power around the time the great Durbar was held there for King George V. The Victoria Memorial is one of the imperious structures at the epicentre of Calcutta. Wellington Road, Wellesley Street, Hungerford Street, Cornwallis Street, Minto Park, Middleton Row- “you name it, we have it” is what good old Calcutta seems to say to Britain. But the Marxists, who ruled the roost for 37 years, tried their best to undo at least some of its colonial past. Ochtorlony Monument became Sahid Minar (meaning Martyr’s Column), Dalhousie became BBD Bag (Bipin-Badal-Dinesh Park, after three local freedom fighters) and Lansdowne Road is now known as Sarat Bose Road (named after Netaji Subhas Bose’s brother). But Strand Road is still the same, as is Hastings and the Esplanade.
Be it whatever, for old Calcuttans, the old names prevail. They give directions to a stranger naming the same landmarks they used since their childhood. For them Calcutta is still Calcutta in English, though they talk about it as “Kolkata” when they speak in Bengali, as their forefathers did since time immemorial.
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