Who founded the city of Kolkata? Most people will say that Kolkata was founded by Job Charnock in the year 1690. However, this was a created myth since India started getting influenced by the British East India Company. There is no doubt that few of the western influenced things are actually beneficial and even helped Indians in the freedom struggle but we cannot live by telling a lie to our next generation about Kolkata.
Kolkata is famous for its art, culture, and literature and we proudly say that most of the Nobel prize winners belong to our city. Speaking about our literature, numerous jewels are being celebrated by us every time. Coming back to Kolkata which is Calcutta in 2001. But we can smell the trace of Calcutta with the name “Kalikata” in many poems and literary artworks of the 15th century. The works of Mukundaram Chakraborty or even the poems written by Krishnaram Das have little hints of the existence of Kolkata which became famous before the British influence. Even in some parts of Akbar Nama (Autobiography of Mughal Emperor Akbar), we can see the reference to the city as “Kalikata”. Today Kolkata is one of the biggest cities in India and has active economic zones. But if we go back 500 years back, we will see that most of present-day Kolkata is covered with forest and marshlands. There were mainly three villages that formed Kolkata by integration, Gobindapur, Sutanuti, and Kalikata or Dighi Kalikata. However, when the British got permission to trade from Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb they used to refer to the city as Sutanuti in the official documents and letters. But after some time the word Calcutta has replaced Sutanuti and the rest we all know. Many stories and facts revolve around the history of Kolkata but some are only myths. It was believed that the British had bought the ownership of these three villages from Sabarna Roy Choudhury who was the Zamindar at the time of the Mughal era. But the reality is the authority of tax collection was transferred to the British East India Company from Sabarna Roy Choudhury by the Bengal Nawab Azim-ush-Shan. Time keeps moving on and continuous urbanization has shaped the cultural and architectural sense of the city.
Today's generation needs to know the real history of the city they admire. Kolkata has some really exciting stories, foods, and places that can create irreplaceable memories. Readers need to know the unknown because the mainstream things may not be true.
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