Kolkata (Calcutta)

Why visit Kolkata (Calcutta)

India’s third-largest city is a daily festival of human existencesimultaneously noble and squalidcultured and desperatedecidedly futuristic though still in transition. By its old spellingCalcutta readily conjures images of human suffering to most Westerners – although that's not a complete picture of this 330-year-old metropolis. LocallyKolkata is regarded as India’s intellectualartistic and cultural capital. Although poverty is certainly apparentthe self-made middle class drives the city's core machinerya nascent hipster culture thrives among its millennial residents and its dapper Bengali gentry frequent grand colonial-era clubs.