back when the British empire was dominating the whole world this place was called the empire's
second city after London and today it's called the cultural capital of India. I’m in Kolkata
right now and in this video we're gonna take a better look at this historic and dynamic city
Right now it's 1 30 p.m. And I haven't had breakfast yet today because for the last 24 hours
I was non-stop scripting this story that I’m about to tell you. It's time to go to one of the more
iconic buildings in Kolkata. Hopefully I can find one of the classic Kolkata taxis for that
Victoria Memorial
I’m in one of the iconic taxis of Kolkata and this one definitely looks very different from
any taxi in Bangladesh for sure. The back seats and the front seats are both like one
huge seat and uh it's pretty run down. My favorite part about this whole thing is that
there isn't really an ac but there's like a little mini fan pointing to the back
Jesus Christ almost forgot my bag in the taxi. This is why I don't like to rush things
I am right in front of the Victoria memorial behind me and this was built like a hundred
years ago and it's a very iconic building all over Kolkata. The special thing about this is that it's
entirely made out of marble and it was structured behind the Taj mahal.
I’m actually not going to try to go in because the line to get a ticket in here is absolutely crazy
and I don't want to spend the next two hours in that. This building was basically built to
commemorate Empress Victoria after she died and this is a really pretty building but it's not the
most historic building. So right now I’m going to go to another building that's a lot more important
Right now I am in Princep Ghat trying this kind of food. Has a name I’ve never heard of before.
it's got like a lot of like dry nuts and other stuff. I don't know how to describe it. We got
something very similar to this called jhalmuri in Bangladesh but this has carrots in it that's the
biggest difference. This place Princep Ghat is basically this like mini harbor like thing with
with small ferries that's right on the Hooghly River and the Hooghly River is probably the most
important thing in shaping the history of Kolkata because right here was one of the first ever trade
posts by the East India company way back in the day. in case if you're wondering why there are
huge buildings dedicated to British empresses and why I’m talking about
the east India company which is essentially a British company, here's a really quick but
important history lesson for you. so up until the end of let's say the 16th 17th century
this whole area the Indian subcontinent was controlled by the Mughal empire but as the early
18th century was starting that Mughal empire was declining in strength. This was becoming basically
a fractured empire with not a lot of control and a lot of diffusion of power. That's when
this company called the East India trading company or the British East India trading company later
came in and started set up trading posts and they were not the only ones by the way. there were
trading companies by the french and by a lot of other countries in Europe and these were private
companies that were sponsored by the government but they were private at the beginning of it.
So these companies were laying down trading posts everywhere but they laid a very important one here
and then they went on to buy on three villages that were here and combined them to make the
first ever city of Kolkata let's say and they started developing it as a proper city. And
don't get me wrong, people were living here for 2000 years before that but the modern day city
of Kolkata has really its root to that colonial time when this East India company set base over
here and you know how much the British were just involved in building the city can be seen from the
names of places. if you go to any other big city in India or even Bangladesh that used to be under
the Brits, at least the places and the streets sound like the local language you know. Over here
streets are called things like park street or central avenue. That doesn't sound Bangla
or Hindi at all and this company went on to do some pretty ridiculous things. They
grew so much they expanded to such an extent that by the end of the 1700s this company was doing
half the trade in the whole world, half the trade they're responsible for it. That's freaking crazy
for one little company. They colonized not just the Indian subcontinent but parts of southeast
Asia and even parts in the Persian gulf and you know eventually this company wasn't even a company
anymore. it just became a managing agency for the British government but in order to make its first
trading post last here and to protect it from attacks by the French or just by people in
the Mughal empire that didn't like them, they had to build a fort which was very hard to do
until they finally did it a little further behind me there 200 meters away. Okay so I wanted to show
you guys the fort that's fort william that the Brits built in the 1690s which is 500 meters that
way but I was trying to enter and I just found out that that is definitely not a tourist area because
that's still a fort inside a military complex and I can't get in. That explains all the barbed wire
behind me there but let me tell you the story of this. so in the 1690s the Brits came and built
the fort which gave them some teeth on the ground in this part of the world to protect themselves
and their trade and that essentially led to the rapid urbanization of this whole area and this
whole area became the center of all British trade in this subcontinent and then in 1773
the British East India company established Calcutta which was the name of Kolkata back then
as the capital of British India and it stayed that way for almost 150 years and when you think about
India now and the biggest cities, you probably think about Delhi and Mumbai but back in the
day it used to be Kolkata and honestly India's biggest city was Kolkata all the way up until
1980s. But a lot happened in those 140 or 50 years when Calcutta was the capital. One
of the big things that happened was that in 1857 there was the Indian rebellion as the Brits called
it or the Indian mutiny or the first Indian war of independence as the people from here call it,
which is a lot of Indians rose up against the British east India company because of
their unfair practices. What the Brits did in response to that was that they said like,
“okay east India company you messed up, you gotta get out of here and we gotta go”. No that's not
what they said. They said that the East India company needs to transfer all ownership of this
area of this huge colony directly to the British government and the British government continued
to colonize and rule this area for almost another hundred years after that. But right after the
British government took over, a lot of big changes happened and a lot of it was spurred by the
industrial revolution that was full on underway all over the world and also in British India
with the industrial revolution in Kolkata there came cars and buses and trams and Kolkata actually has
the oldest tram network in all of Asia. Back when it started, I think it was around 1873,
it was controlled or run by horses for I think 20 years and then for 10 more years it was run
by steam. Then at the very start of the 20th century it switched to the electric network.
unfortunately it seems like there's less and less trams every single time I come here. I
remember when I used to come here like 20/25 years ago there were a lot more trams on the
streets than there are now and on the flip side there's a lot more metro stops and metro lines.
So it's definitely easier to get around the city even though there are a lot less trams
than there used to be. But if you do want to see one of the old trams come to this tram museum
right here and you can take a look at one of the ancient trams and what it used to be like
to be inside them. You know not everything was good about the industrial revolution in
British India. Unlike the western countries of Britain itself or America where private investors
were absorbing the risks of whatever investments that didn't work out, although all the decisions
were being made by the colonial administration, the ultimate people who endured the risks of these
risky infrastructure projects where the taxpayers or the local people of the Indian subcontinent and
this led to so many farmers or farm owners losing everything they have. Losing all their property
losing jobs losing food and it also led to massive famines that killed millions and millions of
people in the subcontinent. So obviously people were not happy previously about the British
occupation but they were more and more and more dissatisfied with what was going on and Kolkata
was actually at the very center of the early stages of the Indian independence movement. But
it wasn't just the center of political activities. it was also a huge center of culture and the arts.
So right now I’m at this place called Jaroshanka Thakurbari. I know that's a mouthful for those of
you don't speak Bangla. This is the place where this guy named Rabindranath Thakur was born
where he grew up and where he died. For those of you don't know, Rabindranath Thakur is one
of the top two people in the history of Bangla literature. he was mostly famous for his poems
and he won a Nobel prize for his poems and he was the first ever non-European to win a Nobel prize
for literature anywhere in the world. And he made such an impact on Bengali culture. So my dad
has been listening to his songs for the last 40 years and I see him listen to it every time he's
at work. He's a dentist and he listens to like classic Bangla music and this is someone that died
1941 or something like that, even before India was independent. Even beyond his work as an artist
he was also a very well-versed and outspoken anti-nationalist and internationalist. He was
very much against the British occupation of British India which included Bangladesh India
and Pakistan. He was actually offered knighthood and he refused it because he was against British
colonialism. The national anthems for both Bangladesh and India are actually original
compositions of Rabindranath Thakur. classical literature is not exactly my thing but you don't
have to be into Bangla literature or classical literature to appreciate the ridiculous talent
that this man had. And now we're gonna go to one of those places which is definitely what you think
about when you think of artists in Kolkata. Right before you go inside this coffee house that I’m
about to enter you come across this place called Boi Bazar which literally book market in Bangla and this
is the largest second-hand book market in all of India. Now off to the coffee house
I was able to go inside and get some shots and when I went inside and I was sitting down I met
some people that were super friendly, that came up to me and talked to me
and are asking me where I’m from and all. one thing I just really want to say is that
when I walk around the streets of Kolkata it really doesn't
feel like a different country. When I try the food it's almost the same food that I grew up eating.
When I meet the people it's a slightly different accent but we all seem the same and we all seem
the same because really we are the same. West Bengal wasn't a separate part from Bangladesh
before the partition happened. It was one big region with the same culture the same language
and if you don't know the history, in 1947 when India became independent,
immediately it was separated into Pakisan and India depending on religion and my grandparents
were mostly staying in the Indian side today and had to move to what is Bangladesh. Both my parents
on my dad's side actually lived in this place called Nadia not too far from here. My dad's older
brothers and sisters actually were born there. My mom's side is actually from Bangladesh but her dad
also lived in India back before the partition. We're the same people essentially but we're
separated by this border and it's not like an open border like let's say Czech republic or Slovakia.
it's a very very hard border with a fence and a wall and all that stuff and no one can still cross
that because you need a passport and a whole visa process to go around. Most working-class
people are uneducated. They don't have a passport. They'll never have a passport. They'll never see
all these other people who are just like them. it's kind of sad. Hope that changes sometimes but
until that does we'll have to deal with the world that we live in today. Anyways that's it for this
one. if you like this video don't forget to hit the like button. if you want to see more feel
free to subscribe to my channel. if you want to catch my adventures in real time feel free to
follow me on instagram it's back. I’ll catch you guys in the next one from probably India