A Walk in Calcutta - compelling read

ON a rainy day in the late 17th century, an enterprising agent of the British East India Company named Job Charnock sailed along the Hooghly River, a tributary of the Ganges that flows from high in the Himalayas into the Bay of Bengal, and pitched a tent on its swampy banks. The company bought three riverside villages. Soon they would become a port — flowing with opium, muslin and jute — and then, as the capital of British India until 1912, draw conquerors, dreamers and hungry folk from all over the world.

Calcutta, India’s first modern city, was born.

read rest here> http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/travel/03calcutta.html?8dpc