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Headquarters of South Eastern Railway (SER), Garden Reach, formerly Bengal Nagpur Railway (BNR)
South Eastern Railway (SER) Headquarters, Garden Reach
formerly Bengal Nagpur Railway (BNR)
The opening of the Mumbai-Thane line in 1853 marked the beginning of railways in India. The Bengal Nagpur Railway (BNR) was formed in 1887 for the purpose of upgrading the Nagpur Chhattisgarh Line and then extending it via Bilaspur to Asansol, in order to develop a shorter Howrah-Mumbai route than the one via Allahabad.
The BNR main line from Nagpur to Asansol was opened for goods traffic on 1 February 1891. It was only after Kharagpur was linked from the west and the south that it was connected to Howrah in 1900.
Ghare Baire (The World, The Home and Beyond), 18th – 20th Century Art in Bengal, Old Currency Building, Kolkata
Ghare Baire (The World, The Home and Beyond)
18th – 20th Century Art in Bengal
Old Currency Building, Kolkata
2019 saw the opening of several themed based museums in Kolkata. They include the I am Calcutta (আমি কলকাতা) Museum in Metcalfe Hall, Icon of Nationalism Museum at the National Library, Reserve Bank of India Museum and the Theatre Museum in Salt Lake.

Old Currency Building housing the Ghare Baire, 18th – 20th century art gallery of Bengal
The beginning of 2020 was marked with the inauguration of a Bengal Art Gallery by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the historic Old Currency Building. Titled Ghare Baire (ঘরে বাইরে) The World, The Home and Beyond the museum focuses on 18th – 20th century Art in Bengal.
Kolkata’s very own Museum, Metcalfe Hall
Kolkata’s very own Museum
Metcalfe Hall
Museum – a series of artifacts arranged in rows with placards describing each of them. This has been the idea of a museum for most of the people. Over the years, like all other things, museums have also evolved.

Metcalfe Hall, Kolkata
Today museums are not just a display of artifacts. It comes in with audio visual effects creating a movie theatre like atmosphere. The visitor gets a real life feel of the artifacts as he moves from one gallery to the other.
Reserve Bank of India Museum, Kolkata
Reserve Bank of India Museum
Kolkata
Do you know, long before the introduction of money food grains, salt, replicas of tools, cowries and even giant donut shaped stones served as a medium of exchange? The newly opened Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Museum provides an extensive insight into the history of money and banking.

An installation showing the evolution of money, RBI Museum, Kolkata
Opened on 11 March 2019 this is the second RBI museum in the country. It came 21 years after the inaugural one opened its gates at the Mumbai headquarters.
Calcutta Bungalow – Heritage Bed & Breakfast, an initiative of Calcutta Walks
Calcutta Bungalow – Heritage Bed & Breakfast
An initiative of Calcutta Walks
It was probably in 2007 I met Iftekhar Ahsan (Ifte) for the first time. He had just launched Calcutta Walks, a walking tour company aimed at exploring the city. Calcutta was not new to walking tours and I was personally introduced to the concept of walking tour almost a decade before the meet.

Welcome to Calcutta Bungalow, Heritage Bed & Breakfast (the logo has been superimposed by photo editing software)
It was in 1999 when renowned conservation architects Debasis Nayak and Akhil Ranjan Sarkar first introduced me to the world of walking tours. At that time I was doing my Masters of Business Management (MBM) from Calcutta University and thoroughly enjoyed the early morning training session through the lanes and by-lanes of Sovabazar area of north Calcutta.
Wreck of Sir John Lawrence, the advent of Kolkata – Puri rail link
Wreck of Sir John Lawrence
The advent of Kolkata – Puri rail link
The Mullick Ghat Flower Market and the adjoining ghats has always been a hunting ground for photographers. The top view of the chaotic flower market or wrestlers posing in front of the iconic Howrah Bridge are some of the most prized photos.
But hidden from the photographers is an almost invisible marble plaque telling a sad but interesting tale. Located on the wall on the right of the stairs leading down to Chotulal Ghat (also called Mullick Ghat) is a bilingual (Bengali and English) dedicated to the memory of ship wreck victims.
The Bengali version reads as
ইং ১৮৮৭ সালের ২৫ এ মে তারিখের ঝটিকাবত্ত সার জন লারেন্স বাস্পীয় জাহাজের সহিত যে সকল তীর্থযাত্রি (আধিকাংশ স্ত্রীলোক) জলমগ্ন হইয়াছেন তাহাদিগের স্মরণার্থ কয়েকটি ইংরাজ রমণী কর্ত্তক এই প্রস্তর ফলক খানি উৎসীগৃত হইল।
The English version reads as
The stone is dedicated by a few English women to the memory of those pilgrims, mostly women, who perished with the Sir John Lawrence in the cyclone of 25th May 1887.
Cyclones and ship wrecks were nothing uncommon in the Hooghly River but this wreck was important and it lead to a significant change in the history of Indian transport and paved the way for Kolkata – Puri rail link!