OCTOBER 2018 ✦ INDIA TODAY KOLKATA 5ON OCTOBER 15 -19
PRICE `3500 per person
WEB calcuttawalks.com
AT Roy Bari, Kabiraj Row Lane,
(opposite school of tropical medicine)have bought not just a lot of gold
but also diamonds and emeralds
from Europe in their heydays,” says
Anirban Dutta, an explorer from
Calcutta Walks.
The walk begins early in the morn-
ing on a chosen day with explorers
meeting outside Girish Park
Metro Station. Walkers are then
taken to the famous pujas nearby,
including two, at the Dawn house-
hold, the two Deb family pujas,
Pathurighata’s Khelat Ghosh’s pujo
and Shobhabazar Raj Bari. Each
family celebrates in a dierent style,with dierent rituals and one gets a
taste of the real thing up close. At the
end of the walk, explorers are served
a typical vegetarian bhog or meal.While monuments and history books
remain, intangibles like these that are
part of the city’s heritage are slowly
losing currency. “We had more than
100 members participating in the
puja festivities before. Now with
nuclear families and people mov-
ing out of the city our numbers have
dwindled to 25,” says Pashupati
Roy, the 79-year- old head of the
Roy household in Colootola near
Burrabazar. The family will be cele-
brating its 161st Durga Puja this year.Calcutta Walks
explorer Anirban
Dutta (third from left)
with tourists at a
Pujo bari