Belur Math

Kolkata

Kolkata is the one Indian metropolis that still feels like it belongs to the people who live in it rather than to the traffic. Do the north first and on foot. Kumartuli is the potters' quarter where the Durga idols are built from straw and river clay through the year — go in the months before the puja and you will find workshops full of half-finished goddesses. College Street sells second-hand books by the mile, and the Indian Coffee House above it has been arguing about politics since before independence. The trams still run, barely, and the ferry across the Hooghly to Howrah at dusk costs a few rupees and gives you the bridge from below. Durga Puja, in September or October, is the reason to plan a trip around this city. For five days the streets fill with commissioned temporary architecture — some of it genuinely ambitious — and nobody sleeps. It is also completely full; book months out. October to February. Summer here is humid and heavy, and the monsoon floods streets to the knee.