Category: Heritage

Postal Museum Kolkata

by Subhadip Mukherjee, posted in Heritage

Postal Museum Kolkata (41)

I distinctly remember that during the early 90’s till about the new millennium the usage of postcards was very common for me. The 90’s saw many quizzes and completions on television and newspaper which required the individual to respond on a postcard. Later due to their increasing popularity the postal department had rolled out special Competition Post Cards which cost a lot more than the ordinary postcard. However with the new millennium and the advent of Internet in the country saw the dominance of postal service slowly declining. Emails were slowly replacing letters and private courier services with better service took over the role played by Indian postal department.

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Kolkata Literary Heritage Bus Tour

by Subhadip Mukherjee, posted in Events, Heritage

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My city of Calcutta (Kolkata) has seen many heritage walks and heritage bus tours but on 16th of October 2016, I myself and this old city of mine witnessed something for the very first time. Oxford Bookstore one of the city’s heritage landmark and also a bookstore arranged the first ever Literary Heritage Bus Tour along with Patra Bharati under the banner of Apeejay Bangla Sahitya Utsob. LetUsGo was the Heritage Tour partner for the festival providing vital infrastructure making this a truly comfortable bus tour.

This is the second year of Apeejay Bangla Sahitya Utsob and this year a special bus tour was organised for selected bloggers and the press media who were taken on a tour of city’s literary landmarks.

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Pondicherry – Things to Do In White Town

by Subhadip Mukherjee, posted in Heritage, Pondicherry, Travelogues

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In my previous blog, I have told you about White Town in Pondicherry which is basically the centrepiece of Pondicherry, a small locality located right next to the sea and stuck in a time warp. Logically this White Town is also home to some of the tourist spots in Pondicherry.

In this blog, I am going to tell you about eight of the key spots that you can visit while you are at White Town Pondicherry. These are mentioned in the order of the path that you can follow by which all of these can be covered within a walk of 1.2 Kilometres.

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Pondicherry – White Town

by Subhadip Mukherjee, posted in Heritage, Pondicherry, Travelogues

 

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Being a heritage lover the best part of Pondicherry according to me was the walk around White Town. As the name suggest it was a secluded section in Pondicherry which was exclusively reserved for the white French people who had settled here and called it home after 1674 when they acquired it and used it as a trading post along with other locations such as Mahe, Karaikal, Yanam and Chandannagar.

I have been to Chandannagar since it’s quite near to Kolkata and the classic French architecture is present but not like what we can see in White Town. The moment you enter this locality you will be transported a century back into some French town. The roads, houses, hanging balconies, crisscrossing streets are typical that of a French town something similar that I had seen in St. Louis in Senegal.

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Churches of Pondicherry

by Subhadip Mukherjee, posted in Christianity, Heritage, Pondicherry, Travelogues

Churches of Pondicherry (1)

India being once part of the British Empire saw its share of cross-cultural amalgamation especially when it comes to architectural style. However India being a pretty large land mass there were also some pockets of French, Portuguese and Dutch settlements. One such classic example is that of Pondicherry, a small town which had been completely engulfed into the lifestyle of a classic French town prior to India’s independence and few years even after.

After the De Jure of 1956 which was the treaty under which Pondicherry and other French territories of Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam became Indian territories. There was, however, a twist where Pondicherry did not merge with Madras (Tamil Nadu) but instead remained as a Union Territory.

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Mother Teresa – Retracing Her Footsteps in Calcutta

by Subhadip Mukherjee, posted in Christianity, Heritage, Kolkata

Mother Teresa – Retracing Her Footsteps in Calcutta

Close Encounter

“That’s Mother out there” my mother whispered in my ear, it was in the year 1988 and she had come to our school as the chief guest for the school’s annual sports day. With everyone standing in front of me I could hardly see so my mother lifted me up and made me stand on the chair. In the distance I see a frail old lady bending forward slightly with hand folded accepting the standing ovation that she was receiving. Coincidentally I was wearing deep blue shorts and light blue almost white t-shirt and this was the same color that Mother Teresa was wearing. This was the first and last time that I had seen Mother Teresa up close.

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