Calcutta, the seventy-first day

Calcutta is indisputably a city of the early nineteenth century. Having ceased to be the capital for the benefit of Delhi in 1911, architecture after that date is much less dramatic. For buildings of the Golden Age of Calcutta there are two alternatives, ruin or restoring with limited means. The restored neighborhoods have something from New York in those “neo-classical” stately great buildings for banks or insurance companies. 

There is also something Mediterranean in the city buildings painted in ocher and brick with green shutters. 

In the neighborhood of my hotel (that the Victoria Memorial had shown me that morning as the equivalent of the Champs-Elysees in formal times) are also found the lavish hovels. One of them, invaded by a jungle of weeds announced the “Calcutta Ladies Golf Club” on a black marble plaque bobble cracked like one on a grave.

Calcutta is also some London "Double Decker" buses still in service, but the engine had exploded one day and now they are towed by tractor-trailer which makes them hang back down!