Kolkata: India’s Most Underrated Major City

Every major Indian city has a reputation that precedes it. Delhi has power and monuments; Mumbai has money and ambition; Jaipur has forts and tourists. Kolkata gets sadness and decay, which is unfair and increasingly outdated. The city that served as British India’s capital for nearly a century has extraordinary colonial architecture, a literary and artistic tradition that produced Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray, and multiple other Nobel-adjacent figures, some of the best food in India, and a pace of life that makes it more liveable than most Indian megacities for extended visits.

The poverty in Kolkata is real and visible. But the assumption that visiting means a difficult or grim experience is wrong; the city is also the most intellectual, most politically argumentative, and most cinematically rich in India, and those qualities are everywhere.

What to See

Victoria Memorial on the Maidan is the most photographed building in Kolkata: white marble completed in 1921 in a hybrid of Mughal and Renaissance styles, surrounded by 64 acres of gardens. The museum inside covers British colonial-era paintings, manuscripts, and military history. Entry INR 200 for foreigners. Open Tuesday through Sunday, 10:00-17:00. The building looks best in the early morning mist in November and December.

Howrah Bridge (Rabindra Setu), the 1943 cantilever bridge across the Hooghly, carries an estimated 100,000 vehicles and perhaps twice as many pedestrians daily. It is the most intense piece of infrastructure you can walk across for free anywhere in the world. Rickshaws, handcarts, buses, taxis, and pedestrians share the same space entirely by negotiation. Allow 15 minutes to cross and another 15 to stop breathing.

Kumartuli in north Kolkata is the neighbourhood where artisans make the clay idols used in Durga Puja. The workshops operate year-round and visiting between July and September, when Durga Puja idol-making is at its peak, gives the most to see: bamboo, straw, and clay being assembled into 4-metre figures through a process that has changed little over centuries.

College Street (Boi Para) near the Presidency University campus has a kilometre of secondhand and new book stalls in Bengali, Hindi, and English. Worth a morning even if you don’t buy anything. Academic titles from the colonial era, cheap Bengali paperbacks, everything.

Durga Puja

If you can be in Kolkata during Durga Puja (typically September-October), do not miss it. For five days, several thousand elaborately decorated pandals (temporary structures) housing ambitious sculptures compete across the city. It is part religious festival and part city-wide art competition that takes itself seriously. Entry to every pandal is free. The city becomes nocturnal; people walk between pandals all night and the atmosphere is like nothing else in India.

Where to Eat

Bhojohori Manna (the Ekdalia Road branch) is the best introduction to Bengali thali for visitors: rice, dal, fish preparations, vegetables, and mishti doi (sweet yogurt) for INR 300-450 per person. Bengali food is distinct from north Indian cooking, more subtle spice, emphasis on fish, mustard oil in almost everything.

Peter Cat on Park Street has been serving its chelo kebab (Persian-style rice with kebab and egg) since 1975. The interior hasn’t changed since roughly then. Budget INR 600-800 per person.

Street food: kathi rolls (egg and chicken in paratha) from Nizam’s on New Market Road at INR 80-150. Mishti doi from K.C. Das near Esplanade, the most famous sweetshop in Kolkata.

When to Go

October through February: temperatures 15-25°C, humidity manageable, festival calendar includes Durga Puja, Diwali, and the Kolkata International Film Festival in November. March through May is unpleasantly hot. June through September is monsoon.