One of Rabindranath Tagore’s most popular short stories, Kabuliwala, will be told once again in film. In this new remake, Mithun Chakravarthy will reportedly play the titular role of Rehemat, an itinerant merchant from Kabul, Afghanistan, who strikes an unlikely friendship with a 5-year-old girl during his yearly visits to Kolkata. Though it is fiction,… Read more »
This book contains observation on Indian customs as well as accounts of sports as practiced by natives from the years before 1801. It attempts to document different methods of hunting in the subcontinent and gives details on the differences that existed between practices in various districts and regions. This edition, the second, of the book… Read more »
This book comprises 18 drawings of various prominent structures that once made up the ancient citadel of Gaur, as well as a topographical map of the expanse of its ruins as found in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Gaur, also known as Gauda, Lakshmanavati, Lakhnauti and Jannatabad, served as the seat of many… Read more »
This map titled ‘India (northern Part)’ highlights the northern divisions of territory into presidencies and native states. The Bengal Presidency is marked in red including the lieutenant-governorships of the North-West provinces, Oudh, Punjab and Central Provinces; Bombay Presidency is marked in green, Madras in Yellow and native states in orange. After significant territorial acquisitions were… Read more »
This map by Dutch publisher Pieter van der Aa is from his book, Royaumma de Grand Mogol, published in Paris in 1729. It is based on William Baffin’s map, ‘INDOISTANI A Description of East India, conteyninge th’ Empire of The Great Mogoll,’ that was published in 1619. Baffin’s map was the first modern map of… Read more »
This image shows the Armenian Ghat by the Hooghly River. It is said to have been built in 1734 by Manvel Hazaar Maliyan, an Armenian Trade merchant. The Armenians came to Bengal in the 16th century CE, during the Mughal rule, for commercial purposes and established a settlement much before the British East India Company… Read more »
This view looks east from across the Maidan and the Chowringhee road with a clear landscape of the public buildings and private houses. Chowringhee Road was one of the Maidan’s major streets, and one of Calcutta’s broadest avenues. It was almost two miles in length and about eighty feet in width, with houses on one… Read more »
This view looks north-west from the Ochterlony Monument across the maidan towards the Government House and building along the Esplanade row. The image also captures other important buildings partly visible in the background, such as the General Post Office, the Writers’ Building, and St. John’s Church. In the 1760s, the establishing years of the East… Read more »
‘Sketches illustrating the manner of customs of Indians and Anglo Indians drawn on stone from the original drawings from life by William Tayler esq.’ is a collection of six lithographs published in London in 1842. It portrays the luxurious everyday lives of Anglo-Indians in great detail while also depicting aspects of Bengali village life. It… Read more »
This photograph shows a view of the river Hooghly from Chandannagar’s riverside promenade known today as Strand Road or Strand Promenade. Estimated to have been built primarily in the 19th century, waterfront road was previously named Quai Dupleix after Joseph Francois Dupleix, who prior to serving as the French Indian Governor General, had served as… Read more »
This photograph shows a view of Chandannagar’s riverside promenade known today as Strand Road or Strand Promenade. Stretching alongside the Hooghly, the promenade is estimated to have been built primarily in the 19th century, and even today remains an iconic landmark in the city – where residents come to unwind and gaze at the river.… Read more »
Pictured here is a clock tower built in 1880 in Chandannagar’s Strand Promenade. Featuring a clock gifted by Joseph Daumain St. Pourcain in 1845, the building served as a police unit and jail, and continues to house the town’s police station to this day. The photograph is among several of 19th century Bengal captured by… Read more »
Pictured here is Chandannagar’s wide riverside promenade known as Strand Road or Strand Promenade. Stretching alongside the Hooghly, the promenade is estimated to have been built primarily in the 19th century, and even today remains an iconic landmark in the city – where residents come to unwind and gaze at the river. The photograph is… Read more »
This picture shows the north side of the vast open space, known as the Maidan, in the centre of Calcutta, bordered by Chowringhee Road. The Maidan is surrounded by the city’s main public buildings, such as the Government House, on the far left behind the Ochterlony Monument, now called the Shahid Minar. Open spaces were… Read more »
This picture shows a view of the famous vast-spreading Banyan tree at the Botanical Garden, situated on the west bank of the Hooghly river in Calcutta. The garden was established in 1787 as “Company Bagan” by Colonel Robert Kyd, a horticulture enthusiast, who worked as the secretary of the Military Board at Fort William. Botanist… Read more »
This is a decorative, mid-19th century map of Northern India drawn and engraved by J. Rapkin (vignettes by A. H. Wray & J. H. Kernot) and published in John Tallis’s Illustrated Atlas (London & New York: John Tallis & co, c.1851). The Illustrated Atlas, published from 1849 to 1853, was the last decorative world atlas.… Read more »
This map, Carte Du Bengale, is attributed to Arkstée & Merkus, but it is based on a map by French geographer Loui Brion de la Tour, who also made the Atlas Géneral, Civil et Ecclésiastique’, 1766, and ‘Atlas Général’, 1790-98. The eighteenth century was a time of conflict between the English and French in both… Read more »
The Kalighat area first finds its mention in the 15th century Bengali text, Manasā-Vijaya, written by poet Bipradas Pipilai. It is also mentioned in a 16th century literary work Chandimangala by Mukundaram Chakrabarti. Kalighat was also established as a pilgrimage centre after legend placed a fragment of Sati’s body here, near the Ganges and since… Read more »
This is an image of a bridge over Tolly Nullah at Kalighat in Calcutta by Samuel Bourne. Warren Hastings, the Governor General of India from 1773 – 1785, had acquired permission in 1763 to build a suspension bridge over Tolly Nullah which was to connect Kalighat to his garden house in Alipore. It was later… Read more »
The fashion evolution and textile legacy of Calcutta and the Bengal Presidency