Editor's Letter: Kolkata in May

Dear reader,

Kumartuli Ghat on the Hooghly river in north Kolkata — Photo: Indrajit Das / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

There is a particular kind of afternoon in Kolkata in May. The sky turns the colour of old brass, the air goes still, and the whole city seems to hold its breath. Then the wind arrives, the trees on the Maidan bend, the first fat drops of the kalbaishakhi hit the pavement, and everyone, from the tea seller to the office clerk, looks up and smiles. The heat breaks, for an hour at least.

That is the Kolkata we wanted to give you this month. Not the postcard city of Durga Puja lights and winter book fairs, lovely as those are, but the city in its most honest season: hot, slow, generous, and full of small pleasures for anyone patient enough to look.

Why May?

Most travel magazines will tell you not to go to Kolkata in May. It is hot and humid, and the monsoon is still weeks away. We understand. But May is also when the city is most itself. The crowds are thinner, the mangoes are in, and Rabindra Jayanti, Tagore’s birthday, fills the city with song. Our opening piece, Kolkata in May: The City When It Is Honest, makes the case and tells you how to plan around the heat.

Inside this issue

We begin in the north, the old city of the great houses. A North Kolkata Walk: Shobhabazar to Jorasanko takes you through rajbaris, temples and the Tagore family home. Then step inside with The Photograph of a Courtyard, our guide to reading and respectfully photographing the thakurdalans at the heart of these houses.

A short walk away, the idol-makers’ lanes are quieter than they will be in autumn. Kumartuli Off Season spends a day among the straw frames and river clay, long before the goddesses get their faces.

The river runs through this issue. Rise early for Kolkata’s Ghats at Dawn, from the flower market at Mullick Ghat to the colonnade of Babughat, and come back in the evening for The Hooghly in the Evening: Ferries and Prinsep Ghat, when the city goes to the water to cool down.

Howrah Bridge's steel cantilever span over the Hooghly river on a foggy morning in Kolkata — Photo: Dey.sandip / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

We eat, of course. Kolkata’s Food Rooms is not a top-ten list but a guide to the kinds of places where the city eats: cabins, sweet shops, home kitchens. And for the earliest risers, Tiretta Bazaar: Kolkata’s Old Chinatown at Breakfast catches a dumpling market that disappears soon after dawn.

When the midday heat arrives, go indoors. Heat, Rain and Rooms with Fans is our guide to the museums and libraries where the city’s history keeps cool under high ceilings.

This month’s guest writer takes us aboard one of the city’s last trams in A Guest Tram Morning in Kolkata, a gentle and slightly bittersweet ride, given how much of the network has been cut back. And for the facts and figures to settle any argument at a cabin table, turn to Kolkata Index: The City by the Numbers.

A note on travelling in the heat

Please look after yourselves. Go out early and late, rest through the afternoon, drink plenty of water, and carry an umbrella for both sun and storm. Opening days, ferry services and tram routes change; check them before you set off. Our writers have tried to be careful with facts, and we have flagged where things are uncertain. If you find something has changed, write to us. We love hearing from readers.

Thank you

Kolkata has been called many things: the City of Joy, the cultural capital, a city of palaces. To us, this month, it has been a city of courtyards and ghats, of tea in clay cups and songs on a May evening. We hope this issue tempts you to go, even in the heat.

Next month, we travel on. Until then, as they say in Kolkata, abar dekha hobe: we will meet again.

Warmly,

The Editor, Travel Viewpoint