Tuesday, March 20, 2007

City of Palaces...


B.B.D. Bagh, formerly known as Dalhousie Square, is actually the part of Calcutta which lends it the name City of Palaces. This is the main financial district of the city, and houses most of the administrative buildings as well. The B, B and D come from three extremist Bengali freedom fighters, Binoy, Badal and Dinesh who lobbed bombs at some Brit policeman.

As far as grand architecture goes, this place takes top honours. The snap on top is of the North British and Mercantile Company Building, while the one below shows a quaint old signboard atop one of the other old mansions.




When I first saw Fort in Bombay, my first thought was: OMG, this is so like Dalhousie! And it is, really. It's the same character. Perhaps, with better character and many more 'firsts'. As Premankur kept telling me, you can safely say the first 'this' or the first 'that' with most things in Calcutta, really! :)


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