Big Little Britain

There are reminders of the British presence in Calcutta everywhere and most of them hark back to Victoria’s England when, give or take a Lucknow style rebellion or two, the imperial shop was in order. The biggest piece of Victoriana is the monumental Victoria Memorial, a huge building in the middle of town raised after the boss lady’s death. Victoria perches on the edge of the dome, leaning out to tend her flocks; she’s figured, it seems, as a voluptuous, modest Grecian mother goddess: a chastely dressed Saraswati meets a mellow and munificent Hera. Outside, drivers wait with horses and carts to take a mainly Indian clientele on rides around the Maidan, the biggest park in the city. It’s very strange.

I’ve walked up Waterloo St and Middleton Row and Shakespeare St through the decaying carapace of the colonial dream. I’m staying in quite a fabulous hotel owned by Brits who’ve been in Calcutta for generations and still call Blighty home. There are faded posters of London tourist attractions on the walls of the dining room; to the collection of family portraits hanging in the stairwells is added a photograph of the Windsor family in the Diana years. Felicity Kendall, staple funny girl of late 70s and early 80s BBC serials, grew up here and her visage adorns the walls of the stairwell too. Yes, very strange indeed.