Category: West Bengal

West Bengal has a layered history dating back to the third century BCE when it was part of the great Mauryan kingdom under Ashoka. It then become part of the Gupta empire, then the Pala kings took over, and then came the Muslim rulers. Fertile lands and robust trade made Bengal one of the richest regions of the world and soon the Europeans arrived. In the 1750s, the British defeated Nawab Siraj-ud-Dwalah in the Battle of Plassey, thus heralding the British colonization of India. But Britain was not the only foreign power in the state. The French had a trading outpost in Chandernagore, the Danes in Serampore, the Portuguese in Hugli, and the Dutch in Chinsurah. Then in 1947, Bengal was partitioned to create East Pakistan.

Poets have sung paeans to the beauty of Bengal. Miles and miles of fertile land crisscrossed by rivers and rivulets stretch under open skies. The land is flat as a flan but it ascends, ever to gently, to the west where the hills of Purulia mark the eastern edge of the Chhotanagpur plateau. And then, tea gardens in arms, it climbs to the icy peaks of the Darjeeling Himalayas in the north. In the south is the estuary of the Ganges, a marshy area called the Sundarbans, home to the great Bengal tiger.

This is our home state and it’s a pity that we have hardly explored it, so we have made a bucket-list of all that we want to see and do in West Bengal.

– Explore the Sundarbans
– Spend more days, many more days in Kolkata. Walking and eating. Eating and walking.
– See Durga Puja in Kolkata
– Visit Purulia
– Visit the terracotta temples of Bishnupur
– Stay at the old mansions of Bengal like Itachuna and Barikothi
– Explore the history and heritage of Murshidabad
– Cruise on the Ganges
– Explore Malda
– Travel slowly in Dooars
– Explore the hills of West Bengal
– Eat regional Bengali food and write about it