Traveling to Pre-Modern Calcutta

Pre-modern Calcutta? Isn’t Calcutta a modern, colonial city? How do we find the pre-modern? Why would you want to separately see it?

Calcutta, the current capital of the Indian State of West Bengal was once the second most important city in the British Empire. The relics of the same are all visible around the city, with beautiful Victorian and Edwardian Era land-marks, like the Victoria Memorial and the Howrah Bridge. But how did Calcutta become this city, the shining light of Empire. What are its roots? How did it reach this pinnacle as an metropole at the 19th century. As travellers and tourists to Calcutta, can you see some of that?  What about remnants of ancient and medieval periods? How does pre-modern Calcutta present that?