Millennium Park

Love is in the air and it’s still young! This is the feeling one gets when he visits the beautiful Millennium Park, Kolkata. The park was inaugurated on 1st January, 2000 justifying the nomenclature of the park, Millennium Park. The park is probably one of the latest additions to the increasing list of Kolkata’s parks and gardens. This park was developed by the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) on the land of Kolkata Port Trust. This was an earnest endeavor by the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority to add up to the glamour of the ‘City of Joy’. The park, on the river front, is the ideal place to hang out or enjoy a romantic evening with the splendor of the River Hooghly presenting a majestic backdrop.

The Millennium Park, Kolkata is located strategically on the banks of River Hooghly and in the vicinity of BBD Bagh, probably the busiest location in the city. the park is brilliantly connected to almost all corners of the city by the traffic that flows through the Strand Road. The park is attended by thousands every year and has come up fast as a major tourist attraction of the city.

The park allures the visitors with the array benches on the riverside and enjoys the exquisite sight of the dark green river and the riot of the colors on it. The soothing breeze provides the healing touch to the rustic mind and the buzz of the crowd and the numerous birds creates magical environment in which one can easily lose his senses and submit himself in the hands of nature. The sunsets at the park are its special features with the golden hue of the setting sun creating your personal backdrop. The sight of the Howrah Bridge laying aside the park adds the glamour to the marvelous setting.

A walk along the concrete path of the park too will give you the experience of the romanticism the park beholds for you. This could be the most romantic walk of your life!

Millennium Park is quite different from other amusement parks in the city. This one is based on the fun derived from nature not the materials, which makes this one a truly special place to visit the city.

Fort William

The City of Joy Kolkata is well known for its personal magic which spellbound everyone who comes to visit here with its people, culture and undoubtedly with its enigmatic historical backdrop in its old architectural establishments. And Fort William, Kolkata is the most impressive edifice of British Colonialism in the East which has always been an emblem of British Colonialism in this cultural capital of India. Presently it serves as a citadel of the Indian Army in Eastern India, or better to say Eastern Command Head Quarter of Indian Army.

Historical Background:

There were actually two Fort Williams in British Calcutta, the old and the new. The old fort goes back to the early days of the East India Company. Sir Charles Eyre began the construction of the southeast bastion and the adjacent walls. His successor John Beard added the northeast bastion around 1701. On completion in 1706 he began the Factory or the Government House in 1702 midst of the Fort William, Kolkata. Fort William, Kolkata was named after King William III of England.
After the Battle of Plassey in 1756, the British decided there would be no repetition of the attack on the city and set out to replace the original Fort William, Kolkata. First they removed the inhabitants of the village of Govindpur and in 1758 laid the foundations of this castle which was completed in 1781 at an expense of 2 million British Pounds.

Attractions:

Fort William, Kolkata is able to accommodate a garrison of 10,000 men and has huge green expanse, stretching 3 km north to south and is over a km wide, gives lung space to the chocked city. For the tourist, there is a museum housing arms and armors, swords, muskets and machine-guns. Another section has photographs of the Burma campaign and of the Bangladesh Liberation War. The Arsenal inside is worth visiting with a prior permission required from the Commanding Officer of Fort William, Kolkata.

Architectural Beauty:

The Fort owns a brick-and-mortar structure built in the shape of an irregular octagon surrounding 5 square km of which five sides look landward and three on the river, surrounded by a fosse 9 meter deep and 15 meter broad which can be flooded in times of emergency. There are six gates of the Fort Chowringhee, Plassey Calcutta, Water gate St. Georges and Treasury Gate. A telephone office, recreation club, canteen, cinema hall, restaurant, swimming pool and wide moat surround it.

Getting to Fort William, Kolkata:

Fort William, Kolkata is located on the bank of River Ganga and just by the Vivekananda Setu (2nd Hoogly River Bridge). The place is marked for its tranquility, its lash green surroundings and the sight of River Ganga enriched it deliberately. An hour’s hang out there simply provides a perfect peace of mind to the visitors.
You can avail a taxi or a bus to reach out there from any part of Kolkata, the area is called Hastings. It will be fine for you if you can take a short trip to the Outram Ghat on the bank of River Ganga near the Fort as this place is also awesome in nature. So your Kolkata Tour can’t exclude this place as it is carrying a deep significance in Indian History along with its pleasant presence.

Kali Temple at Kalighat

Kaali is regarded as one of the principal deities of Bengal. There are other temples to Kaali - Sahasrabhuja Kaali, Sarvamangala, Tarasundari and Simhavaahini. Kaali is regarded as the destroyer or liberator and is depicted in a fearful form. Despite the terrifying form, she is considered to deliver bliss to worshippers. The Kalighat temple attracts numerous devotees throughout the year.
Kalighat is regarded as one of the 52 Shakti Peethams of India, where the various parts of Sati's body are said to have fallen, in the course of Shiva's Rudra Tandava. Kalighat represents the site where the toes of the right foot of Shakti or Sati fell. (see Daksha Yagna).
The Temple: The Kalighat temple in its present form iis only about 200 years old, although it has been referred to in Mansar Bhasancomposed in the 15th century, and in Kavi Kankan Chandi of the 17th century.
Legend has it that a devotee discovered a luminant ray of light coming from the Bhagirathi river bed, and upon investigating its source came upon a piece of stone carved in the form of a human toe. He also found a Syayambhu Lingam of Nakuleshwar Bhairavnearby, and started worshipping Kaali in the midst of a thick jungle. This shrine grew to its present form over a period of time, thanks in particular to the Sabarna Roy Chowdhury family of Bengal.
This family is also said to have built the Chitreswari Kaali temple at Chitpur. It is believed that there was a pathway through the jungle between Chitpur and Kalighat, and this pathway is said to have become the Chitpur road of Calcutta.
Kalighat is also associated with the worship offered to Kaali by a Dasanami Monk by name Chowranga Giri, and the Chowringee area of Calcutta is said to have been named after him.
The Dakshineswar Kaali temple across from the river, near Belur Math, bears an image of Kaali worshipped by the spiritual leaderRamakrishna Paramahamsa, guru of Swami Vivekananda.

Eden Gardens

Boasting of a capacity of close to 100,000 - the biggest stadium in the world, that’s until the Melbourne Cricket Ground was renovated and could accommodate more - the Eden Gardens in Kolkata has been witness to many a memorable moments in International cricket. From Sachin Tendulkar’s controversial run out after running into Shoaib Akhtar in a Test match in 1999, to the epic India-Australia Test match in 2001, to Harbhajan Singh’s hat-trick against Australia, Eden Gardens has always been known to produce some very exciting cricket. Eden Gardens also has a special place in the heart of followers of South African cricket, for it was here that the South Africans made their re-entry into International cricket in 1991 – in front of a packed stadium. With a passionate following of the game among locals, Kolkata has had its dark moments as well – none more famous than the 1999 Test match against Pakistan, which was played to a finish in front of empty stands, after crowd trouble had earlier disrupted play and all spectators were evicted from the ground. The Eden Gardens is the home ground of Sourav Ganguly, and more recently the Kolkata Knight Riders – the IPL team owned by Shahrukh Khan, Juhi Chawla and Jai Mehta.

Dakshineshwar Kali Temple

In the year 1847, the wealthy widow Rani Rasmani prepared to make a pilgrimage to the sacred city of Banaras to express her devotions to the Divine Mother. In those days there were no railway lines between Calcutta and Banaras and it was more comfortable for rich persons to make the journey by boat rather than by road. The convoy of Rani Rasmani consisted of twenty-four boats carrying relatives, servants, and supplies. But the night before the pilgrimage began, the Divine Mother, in the form of the goddess Kali, intervened. Appearing to the Rani in a dream, she said, "There is not need to go to Banaras. Install my statue in a beautiful temple on the banks of the Ganges River and arrange for my worship there. Then I shall manifest myself in the image and accept worship at that place." Profoundly affected by the dream, the Rani immediately looked for and purchased land, and promptly began construction of the temple. The large temple complex, built between 1847 and 1855, had as its centerpiece a shrine of the goddess Kali, and there were also temples dedicated to the deities Shiva and Radha-Krishna. A scholarly, elderly sage was chosen as the head priest and the temple was consecrated in 1855. Within the year the priest died and his responsibilities passed to his younger brother, Ramakrishna, who over the next thirty years would bring great fame to the Dakshineswar temple.

Ramakrishna, however, did not serve for long as the temple's head priest. From the first days of his service in the shrine of the goddess Kali, he was filled with a rare form of the love of God known in Hinduism as maha-bhava. Worshipping in front of the statue of Kali, Ramakrishna would be overcome with such ecstatic love for the deity that he would fall to the ground immersed in spiritual trance and lose all consciousness of the external world. These experiences of God-intoxication became so frequent that he was relieved of his duties as temple priest but allowed to continue living within the temple compound. During the next twelve years Ramakrishna would journey ever deeper into this passionate and absolute love of the divine. His practice was to express such intense devotion to particular deities that they would physically manifest to him and then merge into his being. The various forms of god and goddess such as Shiva, Kali, Radha-Krishna, Sita-Rama and Christ appeared to him and his fame as an avatar, or divine incarnation, rapidly spread throughout India. Ramakrishna died in 1886 at the age of fifty yet his life, his intense spiritual practices, and the temple of Kali where many of his ecstatic trances occurred continued to attract pilgrims from all over India and the world. Even though Ramakrishna grew up and lived within the domain of Hinduism, his experience of the divine went far beyond the bounds of that, or any other, religion. Ramakrishna fully realized the infinite and all-inclusive nature of the divine. He was a conduit for divinity into the human world and the presence of that divinity may still be experienced at the Kali temple of Dakshineswar.

Birla Planetarium

Birla planetarium of Kolkata, India is one of the largest museums in Asia. It came into existence in the year 1962 and the credit for establishing this wonderful center of science, communication & environment goes to Birla Education Trust. It is situated at the Eastern metropolitan bypass of Calcutta.

Birla planetarium provides a parlance where astronomical presentations take place. It provides useful piece of information about our solar system, galaxies, life span of stars, space, planets and other heavenly bodies in the most interactive manner via audio video aids. Usually the lectures are given in English, Hindi, and Bengali and occasionally in Oriya, Tamil & Gujarati.

Calcutta Birla planetarium is a single storied circular edifice designed in the typical Indian style. It is a must see place for those interested in astronomy. Its astronomy gallery maintains a huge collection of fine paintings & celestial models of renowned astronomers. It enables you to explore science outdoors.

Armenian Church

Kolkata, the erstwhile capital of the British Raj, is a dynamic city, with a vibrant and rich culture and heritage. A city that is composed of people belonging to many different classes and castes, following different religions, having varied faiths and belonging to diverse communities, Kolkata is secular in every sense of the term. Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Jains, Sikhs and people of many other religious callings can be found here, residing side by side. Each of these religious groups has its own specific place of worship in and around the city. Armenians, too, have their designated holy place in the city, in the form of the Armenian Church, Kolkata.

The Armenian Church, Kolkata, is located in the heart of Armenian Street, at the north-west corner of Barabazaar, near Howrah Bridge in Kolkata, was built in 1764. The oldest extant church in Kolkata, the Armenian Church, Kolkata, was built by Aga Mamed Hazaar Maliyar, on a piece of land donated by a pious Armenian named Kenanentekh Phanoosh. The architecture of the Armenian Church, Kolkata, owes to Katchik Arfiel, also of Armenian origin, who also built the residential abodes for the priests, and donated the belfry which doubles up as a clock tower.

The Armenian Church, Kolkata, profited greatly through the support of wealthy Armenians like Sir Catchik Paul Chater, which led to its interiors being decorated entirely in marble. Made of a combination of white and black marble, the Armenian Church, Kolkata, has an overhead gallery containing mural tablets commemorating departed Armenians.

The interior of the Armenian Church, Kolkata, has an altar with a cross, the gospels and 12 candlesticks symbolizing Christ and his Apostles. There is a staircase leading to an overhead gallery whose walls are full of mural tablets. Three oil paintings - 'The Holy Trinity', 'The Last Supper' and 'The Enshrouding of Our Lord' - by the English artist A E Harris also embellish the altar.

The Armenian Church, Kolkata, is the one place where the few remaining Armenians of Kolkata gather, and meet up with each other, especially at the assemblies held here. Assemblies here are, however, held only thrice a week.