At the time of Partition Bengal was spilt into East and West Bengal. East Bengal became the eastern wing of Pakistan and later, with the disintegration of that country, Bangladesh. West Bengal became a state of India with Calcutta as the capital. The state is long and narrow, running from the delta of the Ganges river system at the Bay of Bengal in the south to the heights of the Himalayas at Darjeeling in the north.

Bengal was brought under Muslim control by Qutab-ud-din, first of the sultans of Delhi, at the end of the 12^th century. Following the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, Bengal an independent Muslim state.

Britain had established a trading post in Calcutta in 1698, which quickly prospered. Sensing rich pickings, Siraj-ud-daula, the Nawab of Bengal, came down from his capital at Mushirdabad and easily took Calcutta in 1756. Clive defeated him the following year at the Battle of Plassey, helped by the treachery of Siraj-ud-daula's uncle,

Mir Jafar who commanded the greater part of the nawab's army. He

was rewarded by succeeding his nephew as Nawab but after the battle of Buxar in 1764, the British took full control of Bengal.

Densely populated and polluted,Calcutta suffers from lot of drawbacks. Calcutta has been plagued by chronic labour unrest resulting in a decline of productivity capacity. Despite all these drawbacks Calcutta is city with a soul. It is the city, which is the seat of art and cultural developments. All greats like Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim chandra, Vidyasagar, Vivekananda, Satayjit Chatterjee, Kalidas were from this very Bengal. Great freedom fighters like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Chittranjan, Khudiram Bose were born here. Most of the world-renowned personalities like Mother Teresa to Amartya Sen belongs to the land of Bengal. Bengal welcomes all with its charm and gracious Hospitality.

Calcutta isn't an ancient city like Delhi, with its impressive relics of the past. In fact, it's largely a British creation, which dates only some 300 years and was the capital of British India until the beginning of this century. In 1686, the British abandoned Hooghly, their trading post 38 km up the Hooghly River from present day Calcutta, and moved downriver to three small villages- Sutanati, Govindapur and Kalikata. Calcutta takes its name from the last of the three tiny settlements. Job Charnock, An English merchant who married a Brahmin's widow whom he dissuaded to becoming a sati, was the leader of the British merchant who made the move. At first the post was not a great success and was abandonent on a number of occasions, but 1696 a fort was laid out infront of the present -day BBD Bagh (Dalhousie Square) and in 1698, Aurangzeb's grandson gave the British official the permission to occupy the villages.

Calcutta then grew steadily until 1756, when Siraj-ud-duala, the Nawab of Mushirdabad, attacked the town. Most of the British inhabitants escaped, but those captured were packed into underground cellars, where during the night, most of them suffocated in what become known as 'the black hole of Calcutta'.

Early in 1757, the British, under Clive of India, retook Calcutta and made peace with the Nawab. Later the same year, however, Siraj-ud-duala sided with the French and was defeated at the Battle of Plassey, a turning point in the British- Indian history. A much stronger fort was built in Calcutta and the town become the capital of British India.

Much of Calcutta enduring development took place between 1780 and 1820. Later in the 19^th century, Bengal became an important Centre in the stuggle for Indian independence, and this was a major reason for the decision to transfer the capital to Delhi in 1911. Loss of political power did not alter Calcutta's economic control, and the city continued to prosper after World War II.

Partition affected Calcutta more than any thing else. Bengal and the Punjab where the Hindu and the Muslim populations were living in harmony, a drawing line was drawn between them. The result in Bengal was that Calcutta, the jute procuring and export centre of India, became a city without a hinterland, while across the border in Bangladesh, the jute was grown without anywhere to process or export it.

The massive influx of refugees, combined with India's own postwar population explosion, led to Calcutta becoming an International urban horror story.

Calcutta has many places of interests like the Indian Museum (biggest in India), the maidan, Fort William, Ochterlony Monument, the famous cricket ground Eden Gardens, St Paul's Cathedral, Birla Planetarium, Victoria Memorial, Kali temple, Horticultural garden (biggest in India), Botanical garden, Howrah Bridge, Marble palace, Belur math and offcourse the New Market - the biggest shopping complex where almost anything under the sun could be purchased.

New Market has also the largest wholesale market for vegetables both grown locally and got from different states-specially Nasik and Pune. Here also, one gets to see whole carcass of beef, mutton, pigs being skinned and jointed into huge cuts ready for being sold as wholesale or retail cuts. One also has a separate fish market where various kinds of fishes, both locally grown in bheries (inland fish farming where different species of fishes are cultivated together, at the same time in a cultured environment so as to give a higher yield.), and also fresh catches from the rivers and the seas are all got here and then segregated. One is amazed by the total quantity of daily catches that are got in the market if one goes to the market early in the morning.