Saturday, November 24, 2007 Calcutta Coffee House - Calcutta's Heritage Still Recounts History In the midst of ultramodern coffee shops like Barista, Costa and CCD (Cafe Coffee Day), Kolkata still hold the pride of drawing a chunk of people to its age old coffee house. Its still a best place for the people in mid 60s or even older. Because of the proximity to college street, its also a stamping ground for young bloods. The college street of Kolkata is specially famous for its book stores. All the major publications of Bengal located here. College street is also a hub of numerous colleges. Some of the prestigious institutes like Presidency college, Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Society, Scottish Church College, Bethune College and many more stand tall among many other colleges. Albert Hall in college street was the major stone to built the coffee house. History of coffee house starts from here, which was found in 1876. At that time Albert Hall was the hangout place for posh Britisher, later coffee board decided to make a coffee joint and this way coffee house took birth in the year 1942. Once a stamping ground of Britishers, their families and children, senesced coffee house in Kolkata witnessed the presence of some renowned personalities like Rabindranath Tagore, and Subhash Chandra Bose. The place was a nest of intellectual activities and many literary pieces sprouted here. Coffee house took pride of serving personalities like Satyajit Ray, Manna Dey, Amartya Sen, Aparna Sen, Mrinal Sen, Jagdish Chandra Bose, Ritwik Ghatak and many other intelectuals and artists, who were the regular visitors of coffee house. Several literary magazines, which are now popular now a days owed their origin to the inspiration from the adda sessions at this coffee house. Still the same decrepit doors that open to a smoky big hall where people laugh, discuss, debate and sometimes romance. Still coffee house see number of people seems emerge from naxal period sport in long beard, kurta, slim looking with a ciggarettes in their hand, always on their toes for heated political debate. Coffee house in Kolkata still has the colonial style wooden tables and chair, ceiling fans suspended from ropes, waiter dressed in white uniforms and tall turbans and wall of peeling paints. Really, in this era Kolkata coffee house fights considerably well with modern coffee house's despotism. http://india-majestic.blogspot.com/2007/11/calcutta-coffee-house-calcuttas.html ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India