National Geographic Traveller India – July 2019

THE DESTINATION

82 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER INDIA | JULY 2019

RUMELA BASU

(CEMETRY & CAFÉ),

M AMIRTHAM/DINODIA PHOTO/DINODIA PHOTO LIBRARY

(STAINED-GLASS)

and what was a glorious capital city
is now fraught with Naxal tension
and socio-political unrest. But at no
point can the history of his city be
undermined, Feluda tells Topshe leading
him to the cloudy white tomb of Job
Charnock (considered a founder of the
city) in St. John’s Church.
The sprawling gardened grounds
of the 18th-century church, one of the
first public buildings of the British
capital, houses the tombstone of Lord
Brabourne, Governor of Bengal and
Bombay and Viceroy of India, alongside
war memorials of events seldom spoken
of, such as the tragedy of Calcutta’s Black
Hole Prison, where over 100 British
and Anglo-Indian soldiers and Indian
civilians imprisoned by Siraj ud-Daulah
died. I also spot a monument for British
soldiers lost to the Second Rohilla War.
Feluda had helped Topshe read the Latin
inscription on Job Charnock's tomb, but
I stay for the music of the church's 19th-
century pipe organ.
Tangled in a delicious time warp,
I arrive at a little shop called Ananda
in Gariahat to buy my first copy of a
Feluda graphic novel (“Golapi Mukta
Rahashya” or “The Mystery of the
Pink Pearl”) published by store’s press
in the 2000s. The bold watercolour
illustrations, a refreshing spin on

The 250-year-old

South Park Street

Cemetery (top)

chronicles many

stories of Calcutta's

Englishmen; The

historical St. John's

Church, which

houses Warren

Hasting's first office,

is as colourful as

its stained glass

windows (bottom

lef t); At the Feluda-

themed Abar Baithak

café in Jodhpur

Park (bottom right),

you can relish hot

chocolate along with

Ray's works.

Ray’s own sketches, alerts me to the

city’s perennial chaos. Easy to hate,

easy to love. Soon, I am looking at a

wall art of Feluda’s nemesis Maganlal

Meghraj at Abar Baithak café sipping

on Tinkori Babur Hot Chocolate in the

detective’s backyard, Jodhpur Park.

I know I’ll be out again, sleuthing

for stories. May be I’ll run into more

dazzling tales from the past, or even

better, an adventure-in-waiting.