Journey Through the Sights and Sounds of Kolkata Story Tours's Tours

This walk takes you through the so called Grey and Black Town areas. When the British settled down to trade in Eastern India they needed the help of intermediaries for sourcing trading material and other facilities for them. They also required people to keep accounts, do constabulary work, provide civic services, etc. Although, there

came a lot of people from Britain, local help was of paramount importance. The most important of local people were the traders and middlemen. The local Indian traders made a lot of profit trading with the British. They created a lot of wealth in a very short time and being immensely rich, needed to show off their wealth, power,

clout and newly acquired aristocracy. They started to get entertained by "Bai Dances" or Rent-able Danseuse and even started to splurge money Marrying off their Cats with a lot of glitz. They also started building palatial houses that are curious mixtures of different European and Indian styles. These palaces often were built to overshadow rival palaces and so on. There are so many interesting stories centered around these incidents which, as we have mentioned before, range from the hilarious to jaw dropping incredulity. We will surely tell you some of those stories during the walk.

The Walk will take us through the narrow streets of Old Calcutta where time seems to have frozen in places. Your Local Friend in Kolkata will steer you through the maze of Tram Cars, Hand Pulled Rickshaws, Tuk Tuk Auto Rickshaws, cycles, pedestrians and pavement shopkeepers. We will pass Mansions, Palaces, Mosques, Temples, Churches, artefact sellers and what not. You may want to give your legs a little rest and we can hop into a passing quaint tram car at any point of the walk and hop of whenever we fancy doing so. There will be no rigidity in this walk.

The walk will end in either the Marble Palace or the Jorasanko Thakurbari.

You may choose to complete the tour with neither, either or both these destinations after the walk. These visiting points are beyond the scope of the walk but we can extend the programme to facilitate better understanding & appreciation . Each of these locations can take over an hour to see and you may as well schedule your time till late afternoon, if you want to complete the tour.

The Jorasanko Thakurbari, once the abode of generations of luminaries who excelled in various disciplines over generations and were significant contributors to Bengal and Indian Renaissance, today houses a Museum and University. The sons of the house have among them, Asia's First Nobel Laureate, The Kabiguru (The Guru of

Poetry) Rabindranath Thakur (Tagore). Poet (Nobel Laureate), Author, Dramatist, Singer, Painter, Educationalist (founder of Asia's first open air School and University at Shantiniketan), Humanist & Philosopher. Tagore along with other illustrious members of his family, gave a lot to India. A museum built in the Mansion gives you

glimpses of his life and times.

After Jorasanko, you can again choose to end the tour or continue to make it a day tour by visiting location like the College Street and Kumartully with us.