In mid-July, I went to Kolkata (Calcutta) in West Bengal along with my friends from the Agra trip, and some other new friends. My friends had invited me to come along to join them in putting on a workshop at the Baptist Mission in Kolkata, where they were inviting local Christians (especially young people) to talk about how to influence their communities with Jesus' good news. I was privileged to join in!
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| Ravi and Oliver; Oliver led us in the singing throughout the workshop. |
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| Workshop participants worshiping together. |
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| The Baptist Mission Station in downtown Kolkata. |
I actually went a little early so I could do some research at the National Library of India, which is in Kolkata. Calcutta, as it was then known, was the capital of British India until 1911, and one of the holdovers from this period is the National Library. Like the Library of Congress or the British Library, it serves as a comprehensive library, with the aim of holding all books published in or about India. I went to look for (and found!) some rare books from the 1920s and 1930s concerning the figure I study in India, V.K. Krishna Menon.
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| National Library of India |
Another place in Kolkata reminding us of the British period was the Victoria Memorial, completed in 1921 (20 years after Queen Victoria's death). Victoria never came to India, but in 1870 she was declared its Empress--a title held by the British crown until 1950, when India became a republic. The building is beautiful, though it certainly stands out as a very British building. Kolkata is a hybrid sort of city, with lots of British colonial buildings remaining (as well as street names: one coffee-shop we went to was on Shakespeare Street). Much more so than Delhi, Kolkata retains a certain British presence.
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| Victoria Memorial |
Equally impressive, though less imposing, was the Kolkata Botanical Gardens, home of Asia's largest banyan tree! The Great Banyan is thought to be over 250 years old, and it has spread itself over a wide circumference, such that we couldn't even capture the whole thing!
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| The Great Banyan |
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For a further appreciation of the British Empire, see the following video:
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