Best Calcutta Travel Guides
In 1999, Amit Chaudhuri moved back to Calcutta, the city in which he was born. Already a poet, musician, critic and novelist, in Calcutta Amit Chaudhuri bravely - and brilliantly - embraces new form that is, in many ways, the expression of the city itself.'. Monocle Magazine 'Chaudhuri concentrates on the everyday and there's something admirable about the calm confidence of his unelectric narratives - of buying some vintage windows, of a street food vendor or a friend of the family. -- Paul Laity Prospect 'Concussed by the noise of the new and beguiled by echoes of the past, Chaudhuri maintains his novelists eye and ear for Calcutta's character and citizens. Stylist 'Chaudhuri's trysts with the past are entrancing in their lyricism, and simply stunning in their intelligence and percipience,' Independent 'Chaudhuri's highly personal preoccupations provide an insight into how Calcutta is attempting to adapt to globalisation. -- Anthony Sattin Observer 'Chaudhuri's writing has a strangely mesmeric quality, using the quotidian to draw the reader into the author's mental world, his own way of looking. His stories are spun out of a mix of history and family memoir, but the joy here lies in his digressions, his wanderings through the city, his remembrances and conjectures.'.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It's a "guide" to the author's heart-- as though you're sitting in the room with him listening to him gently talking. In the course of this, we meet street people, chefs in the burgeoning cafe and business society, even maids and his elderly Father's care giver. And, we get a more clear picture of the author, an only child returning to this heat and rain- to Calcutta- to take care of his Father. but only partially so."
"In between his reminiscences of present and past, he makes us miss what we never knew, makes us want to know that whether the life is better now or was it in the past days through his anecdotes of bygone days of the Calcutta."
"Literature detail of Calcutta vs. travelogue."
"The author introduces the reader to a wide range of Calcutta's characters here - from street stall owners to chefs in fancy hotels - from his family members to Mamata Banarjee, the woman who presented an alternative to the Communist/Maoist Party that had so long prevailed in the area. He ostentatiously lets every observation trigger a stream of consciousness in him, flowing back and forth and around - from Bombay where he was born, to present-day Calcutta, to the Calcutta of his youth, to Oxford and Norwich where he studies/teaches in England. Reading "Calcutta" is like watching a loom whose shuttle has gone tilt. Chaudhuri launches off - "Shobhabazar is in North Calcutta; so the narrow lane in which Mini mashi and her elder sister lived doggedly in a government flat, a five-minute walk from Tagores' house in Jorasanko, two minutes from Mallickbari or the marble Palace, and not far at all from Mahajati Sadan, the playhouse; an area as littered with the relics of history as Shobhabazar is thriving (besides still being home to the obscure mansions of erstwhile rajas and landlords) with stalls selling wedding cards, saris, dress material - but predominantly wedding cards." Then in the next sentences, he justifies not having visited Mini mashi sooner by pointing out that his own home is in the more industrially progressive southern part of Calcutta. Perhaps though, the obliqueness of Chaudhuri's observations is a good thing. It puts India in general, and Calcutta in particular, in a whole new light, as a place of unexpected daily details."
"Calcutta defines what a city is in terms of stark contradictions."
"He rambles on and on, jumping from one topic to the next in a stream of consciousness narrative."
"I have read a good bit about India and enjoyed the experience."
Contents: Preface; Introduction; Culture Dictates Form; Crowded Lanes and Secret Courtyards, Style and Construction; A New Urban Culture; Wealth and Competition, Urban Rajahs Set the Standard; The Spirit of a Great House; The Home of the Tagores; Maintaining the Past; Marble, Mirrors and a Rubens; The Palace of the Mullick Family; Tradition and Identity; Splendid Ruins, Architectural Expression and Independence; European Style in Calcutta; The Maharajah of Burdwan's City Palace; East and West, Old and New; Thanthania, the Great House of the Laha Family; The Power of the Image; The Deity at Home, Religion and Everyday Life; Rural Splendour; Ruined and Forgotten, the Andul Raj Bati; Quiet Contemplation; Country Life in Rural Bengal; End Note.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Good book - would have enjoyed a few more pictures but worth the price."
"There are many brilliant photographs and vibrant description of the house of Tagore, Rajah Nabakrishna Deb's palace, the palace of the Mullick family, the Maharajah of Burdwan's city palace and the grand house of the Laha family."
This wandering odyssey through the City's pullulating backstreets and serpentine byways reveals a Calcutta rarely glimpsed by western travellers.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"If you're one of the half dozen or so out there in Amazon-review land who might read this, it made my visit to Kolkata so much better, as it MAY make yours, BUT ... The worst thing is that there is no overall map of the city that links them together and the chapters are NOT presented so you will be easily able to figure out linkages. On facing pages, some are placed 90 degrees to each other; make sure you check the directional arrow. On a side note, the metro IS mostly jammed but the middle of each car is demarcated for unaccompanied women. If you're anything like me, craving detail and local experience and willing to be uncomfortable as hell In your quest, do yourself a favor and get this."
"After arriving in Calcutta, I realized that these walks were highly impractical for a visit of only five days, and would be dreadful in anything but the best weather."
"You feel as if you are being escorted by a personal guide. They will be just as curious about you as you are about their city and lives."
"It can be scary, the first time, but if you get out of the cab, and walk the streets of Kolkata, you'll find so many fascinating things up close."
"Good balance of practical guide, history and general interest."
Best Delhi Travel Guides
India is a country of vibrant and enticing contrasts: exquisite palaces are juxtaposed against simple temples, and modern high-tech industry coexists with ancient customs and rituals. “Fodor’s is pitched a few notches higher….aimed at a fairly discerning traveler with an appetite for background and the occasional surprise.” – New York Times.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Used this 2013 guide all over northern India and learned much info from it in advance of each stop."
"It did give some good information but definitely not enough info on lodging.Been to India twice but it has been many years and I do know there was much more that could be said on lodging which I wanted specifically ."
"Also many locals didn't understand the English name used in the book for a certain temple or sight so that even asking cab drivers would not often get us anywhere."
"good book."
"seems very helpful in planning my trip."
"Great Information."
"Nice book very informative."
"The electronic version is not nearly as detailed as Fodor paper versions that I've used."
Best Bombay Travel Guides
He devoted himself to helping a small orphanage in Bombay, one that was about to close its doors and send its forty children back to the streets (and the brothels) from which they had been rescued. In Bombay Smiles , Jaume Sanllorente gives us an insightful and loving vision of a country of great contrasts. Bombay Smiles is a story of loneliness, ransoms, dangers, injustices, threats of death, and acts of courage, which give an example to follow in spite of the adversities one might meet. Sanllorente was a journalist living a comfortable life in Barcelona when, at the suggestion of his travel agent, he decided to spend his next vacation in India.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I wish everyone read this book, this is why i bought it again in english, because i want others to read it too."
"The book was a gift so I was pleased it arrived in excellent condition and in a timely manner."
Best General India Travel Guides
This is the miraculous and triumphant story of Saroo Brierley, a young man who used Google Earth to rediscover his childhood life and home in an incredible journey from India to Australia and back again... At only five years old, Saroo Brierley got lost on a train in India. A Long Way Home is a moving, poignant, and inspirational true story of survival and triumph against incredible odds. Born in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, India, Saroo Brierley lives in Hobart, Tasmania, where he manages a family business, Brierley Marine, with his father.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It is the real-life story of Saroo, a five-year-old child in a village in central India, who gets lost and finds himself transported all the way east to Calcutta, some 1800 kms away. However Saroo always wonders about his origins, with clear memories of his birth mother Kamala, his kid sister Shekila and elder brothers Kallu and Guddu, whom he looked up to as a child two decades before. Gradually, over five years, with incredible patience and perseverance , Saroo, at age 30, using Google Earth's satellite images and Facebook, miraculously locates the train station with the identifying features of his childhood. Saroo soon goes to India and reconnects with his birth family to the great delight of his elderly mother Kamala and his siblings Shekila and Kallu, who are now married with children. It is a great tribute to these wonderful technologies which make it possible for the adult Saroo to sit ten thousand miles away in Hobart, Australia and exactly locate the water tower and overpass of his childhood memory and find out the correct name of his village. Going through the early chapters where Saroo survives for six weeks as a five-year-old in Calcutta, I had palpitations as I felt anxious that nothing terrible should befall young Saroo!"
"This is a unique story about a boy who became lost in India, adopted, relocated to Australia and his, eventual, return back to India in search of his birth mother and family."
"This is one of those rare stories in which "truth is stranger than fiction.""
"I thought it was excellent."
"This story is both incredibly terrifying and wonderfully heart-warming."
"Thoroughly enjoyable read; how incredible that this little boy had such strong survival instinct in a city swarming with millions of people, and an impressive memory for detail which has resulted in an evocative rendering of his becoming lost."
"I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to learn about this remarkable Journey."
"I bought this book in the hopes that my kids will someday want to read his incredibly brave journey."