Calcutta Chronicles: A Walk on Free School St and Esplanade

A rather humid and torridly hot day.The June sun is beating down the city and with the rains deciding to give the city a miss,it has been increasingly difficult to stay outside.
And what am I doing?
Exploring the lanes and bylanes around Calcutta, trying to capture the city scapes in one frame.And along with me is the multitude.Its definitely crowded - right from the shop on the footpath to the street side vendor selling chowmeins to the shop on the high street.

The intent was to capture Free School street and some portion of Esplanade that day.And it was after a good couple of years that I
was visiting the place.

During our college going days(13 years ago.The senior members of the forum can elaborate more on how Esplanade was even earlier)
Esplanade was the "center" of Calcutta. You would have found half of Calcutta's population descending onto the place at any given
time in the city. Right from shopping malls, restaurants(of the fame of Nizam's, Aminia et al), bars and movie theatres(Metro,
Lighthouse, New Empire, Globe) - it was an entertainment hotspot.You could also find Armani Jeans worth Rs 150 in Metro gali and designer watches for another 100 bucks. Nizam and Aminia was famous for their biryani(the glamour is no more there today). Shaw's bar offerred the cheapest of drinks and used to be teeming with patrons at all times. Touts used to take over the movie theatres during the release of a blockbuster. Fruit juice vendors and softy sellers dotted the place and there were the ballon sellers trying to sell their merchandise to the young kids.

But with the years the business center of the city had changed giving rise to shopping malls, high rises and the sophistication of Esplanade gradually dwindled. I will elaborate more on these points when I publish the Calcutta Diaries, later. That being said, I had presumed that Esplanade will be empty during the afternoon, when I planned my visit. But once I reached there I found you needed to jostle for place for putting you feet. The footpath sellers to fruit vendors all of them were there. And so was "that" dynamic crowd. It was bustling with people all around. True, something was missing in Esplanade, but surely it didnt disappoint.

Most old dilapidated buildings mingle with some new ones and thats how most of the city is.Mosses growing on the walls. Some of which had cracks. The messes of wires around the lamp posts. That red brick building, so peculiar that it gives a feeling that its very much a part of the city's history.

Time stands still.
Here are some of the photos of Free School st. all published in black and white to give it the vintage look, circa 1940s.

nice touch with the B&W conversion, btw...

i still recall fondly the fresh fruit juice stall on the lane from chowringhee to new empire. the guy would pour out the extra squeezed juice into your glass as soon as you finished - at no extra charge!!!

btw, that was back in 1996...

sayakchakraborty, Please continue your Chronicles. You have started with some streets known to many tourists which is useful.

It would be a help if your photos were higher resolution as the detail looks interesting.

The reason behind those low resolution images is - I am not aware how to post higher resolution images in IM
So, I compressed the 2 ish MB files into some 45KB ones.

I would really appreciate if you can assist me on how to put larger photos.

sayakchakraborty, I measured two of your photos and found they had dimensions of
448 x 336 pixels and were about 66 KB file size. If you increase the file size by 3 - 4 times you should still be within the Indiamike file size limit of 2MB ? and the pixel count dimensional limit which is now 1024 pixels, having earlier been 800 pixels.

I have ONLY uploaded photos into galleries and now compress images according to pixel limits. I tried to find the current rules for image sizes within threads but failed - there have been many posts this year on the subject.

In summary, if you can resize your photos to say 900 X 6xx pixels they should be well within limits and be so much sharper. Edit: even 800 pixel max dimension gives quite a good result depending on image. There is a Forum for Travel Photologues where a thread may have many slow to load large size images but I think your Chronicles are more narrative than picture.

Seems I was wrong. The limits for JPG attachments are 100KB and 600 x 480 pixels as indicated in the table given by "Manage Attachments" in the Attach Files box.

The Travel Photologues have larger size images. Edit: the same table of sizes is used for these as well so I don't know how the people achieve images which when measured are larger. There should be other Indiamike people who can explain what can be done.

Wonderful stuff. So much of Calcutta is a magic land to just walk around. The b&w was a great touch. Yes, time has stood still. This is a resources for travellers, which is what IM is all about.

I have been jotting down stuff to write them as an article in IM. However, that will require quite some time, as things like Chronicles cannot be built in a day. Wish all of you can remain subscribed to this thread and sometime in the future I will definitely bring out more in writing.

Thanks for reading.

Snaps of Esplanade, Dharmatalla More, New Market below.

Very interesting chronicles, sayakchakraborty! Amazing photos!

congrats and keep up the good work.
Free school street is my neighborhood, every turn and side streets
look familiar with the pics.
Starting from the intersection of park street you walk on the left mocambo restaurant, Tung fung restaurant, karani mansion, across the street used to be dunlop house. Gupta restaurant further down.
Then Armenian College on the left, then Fire house across the steet few blocks down.
then St Thomas's school, Post office.
across the street stands Katherine used to be Alison long a famous shoe store.
What a great way to bring the old memories back to this street.
The SN banerjee build with clock tower underneath where USIS used to be, saw a great deal of protest against US policy on Vietnam.
It is now a Big Bazaar.

@ycl: I would love to hear some more history from you.

Interesting thread Sayak!

This area was the hub of Kolkata's Anglo-Indian community I believe. A relative of mine (who was born in Mumbai, a Britisher, but who spent much of his life living in Colaba), remembers ~ we are going back a great many years now! ~ Firpo's restaurant, before it was burnt down by the fire.

I would also love to hear more about those vintage days.

The film "36 Chowringhee Lane" by Aparna Sen starring Jennifer Kendal is a must-see.

[Where is Jyotida? He has many stories to tell us about the days when Kolkata was Calcutta. ]

Hope you haven't assumed that this thread is dead! Its a work in progress material which is gradually being filled up. The writing is going on.In the interim here are some photos which I thought to share with you during a recent walk across Southern Avenue to give you all a sense that I am alive and working!

Photo 1 and 2: The Rabindra Sarovar(Sarovar means Lake). There are a couple of islands on this man made lake. One of which has a masjid and is connected to the Lake Club through a hanging bridge. The bridge comes alive during the year ending Christmas and New Year celebration when it is decked up with lights.


Photo 3 and 4: Newly bloomed flowers on the boulevards due to the rains that has hit the city. Look how lively they are.

Photo 5: Maharaja Kachori Shop. There are a couple of famous Kachori shops in Sarat Bose Road - Maharaja and Maharani. A recommended spot for enjoying Kachoris,jalebis. However, beware of the "Delhi belly" (rather Calcutta belly!) syndrome.

Lovely photos and lots of memories, so thanks from me, too!

Back in the early 70s, when I sent parcels from the post office on Free School Street, the clerk used to sing Tagore's songs for me, so I would not be an ignorant foreigner!

I've not yet been to Kolkata, but your photos make me want to go. Thanks, Sayak!