Kolkata, the living city: How citizens revived their culture and heritage

Kolkata is aspiring to acquire the coveted Unesco World Heritage City tag

Shaikh Sohail’s brisk gait is contagious. Leading a motley group of students, school teachers, pensioners, software employees and photographers across the length and breadth of Kolkata’s office para (neighbourhood), Dalhousie, he introduces the majestic buildings of this colonial precinct: the Currency Building with its glazed Italian tiles and vaulted skylight; the white Greco-Roman statues atop the red Writers’ Building; the tomb of the city’s founder, Job Charnock, at St John’s Church; the famed Auckland Hotel in its latter-day avatar as the LaLiT Great Eastern. At every corner they turn, there’s history. 

Kolkata now has a growing band of walkers, exploring