Asim Bando's KOLKATA BLOG

I visited the Sati Shaktipeeth Kankalitala with my own and my younger brother's family last winter. It was a pleasant journey by car from Rampurhat of Birbhum district. We started our journey at about 9 am from my elder sister's house at Rampurhat. On the way we took rest at some market place for breakfast. After that, we again moved by car for our destination Kankalitala.            Finally, we crossed about 63 kms and reached at the desired Shaktipeeth after one and half an hour.           When we reached there, we saw that a good number of beggers were sitting on both side of the entrance road. We slowly crossed the road and entered into the main premises of the temple. The temple is a traditional 'pacca' construction with adjacent 'Nat Mandir' for the devotees and pilgrims. At that morning time, some of family's were busy with the rituals of goddess and some of them came for...

Would you like to visit the places in the city of joy memorable for Sri Ramkrishna and Swami Vivekananda? The state-run tourism deptt. announced a package tour in AC bus to visit the places: Balaram Mandir, the house of Girish Ghosh, Kashipur Udyan Bati, Belur Math, Dakshineswar, the house of Vivekananda and the house of Sarada Ma at Bagbazar. The tour would be conducted on each Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday from 7:30am to 6pm. Booking from 7 May, 2012. -- A. B.

Kolkata would be beautiful like London someday - whether it is a dream or will becoming true, not known. But the administrators of the city want to do something new, something nice. A ropeway will be run from Millennium Park of Kolkata to Howrah Station. Floating jetty for steamers and arrangement of water sports will also be there. There'll be 'Kolkata Eye' on Howrah side of river just as 'London Eye'. From Nimtala Ghat to 2nd Hooghly Bridge in Kolkata side and from Howrah Station to Botanical Garden - both the banks of the river will be decorated with greens. A few multi-national companies showed interests to make the 'Marina' near the 2nd Hooghly Bridge. It'll be a floating jetty on the mid-river from which tours will be conducted for Digha, Sundarban etc. The project will be commenced next year. -- A. B.