Kolkata

Kolkata has been being declared the next city to fall since the British moved the capital to Delhi in 1911, and has been declining the invitation for a hundred and fourteen years — remaining the most intellectually alive, culinarily serious, and politically engaged city in India.

The coffeehouses of College Street — particularly the Indian Coffee House, serving strong coffee and political argument since 1876 — are the most direct expression of Kolkata's claim to be India's most intellectual city. The bookshops of College Street form the largest concentration of book sellers in Asia, selling new, secondhand, and pirated editions with equal enthusiasm. Rabindranath Tagore was born three kilometres from here and is still quoted in the city the way Shakespeare is quoted in Stratford, except that the quotations are usually contextually apt.

Durga Puja, the annual five-day festival that transforms every neighbourhood into a temporary temple, is the most ambitious public art event in India, possibly in the world. The pandals are designed each year in competition, and in recent decades the designers have been some of the most adventurous visual artists in India. On the final day, the statues are carried to the Hooghly river in a procession of several million people that is the largest annual gathering in the city.

Places to Visit in Kolkata

• Victoria Memorial
• Howrah Bridge
• Indian Museum
• College Street

Things to Do in Kolkata

• Colonial architecture walking tour
• Tram ride through old Kolkata
• Street food trail