Timeless Trade: Show casing the enduring charm of Kolkata's historic shops.
Step into a bygone era as you explore Kolkata’s old residential houses. Immerse yourself in the charm of vintage architecture, ornate facades, and the stories that echo within their walls.
Amid flashy LED signages, market-turned-marts and fancy showrooms at Esplanade, some faded painted letters on a worn-out signboard alert passerby of a quaint little shop with over 77 years of lineage! The innocuous Pen Hospital on 9B, Chowringhee Road, Esplanade, is still a “fountain” of hope for pen lovers and a one-stop shop to revive and repair their precious writing instrument. Inside the asbestos-roofed shop stand a few vintage wooden almirahs with glass doors. An elderly craftsman and his two younger associates can be found busy restoring fountain pens from 10am to 7pm six days a week, oblivious to the happenings in the world outside their “operating theatre”. Customers come not only from Kolkata, but from across the world. Priceless heirlooms couriered from across the world are kept neatly in the drawers of the workstation of Mohammed Imtiaz.
The oldest and largest gun shop in the city of Kolkata. It was established in the year 1835 ad. Deals with licenced arms and ammunition. Unlicenced air guns are also sold here. The shop is doing its business with its seventh generation of family members. NC Daw & co. Has its branches at Ranchi and Koderma. He started his business of selling gunpowder, sulphur, and saltpeter used to run these locally made weapons in 1835 from a shop at 22, Chandni Chowk. The office of N C Daw and Co shifted to its present Dalhousie office in the 1890 and since then it has been successfully operating from its present location.
Established in the year 1901, Haji Khuda Bukhsh Nabi Bukhsh Perfumers in Chittaranjan Avenue, Kolkata is a top player in the category Perfume Manufacturers in the Kolkata. This well-known establishment acts as a one-stop destination servicing customers both local and from other parts of Kolkata. Even a decade ago, the handful of Burrabazar’s attar shops that are open now used to take their pride of place among a teeming multitude. Today, they mark the winding down of an era, a slow death of one of the sweetest chapters in the cultural story of Kolkata.
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Batakrishna Paul was probably the only supplier of imported medicines in those days and was popular among British officials. They contacted him whenever they fell ill for a steady supply of such medicines. He took advantage of this trust and helped the revolutionaries in his backyard.
Kolkata is probably the only metro city in India where many colonial-era bungalows are still intact. Several of them have fallen under the hammer of builders over the years, especially in the last decade or so. Such houses often have interesting memorabilia that the owners have collected over decades, and want to sell off. This stash often lands up in the auction houses around the Park Street area. Once upon a time, there were many of these in Kolkata, like Mackenzie Lyall & Co. (set up in the 19th century and known for opium auctions); Dalhousie Exchange, Stainer & Co., and D Albert & Co. Over the years, most have had to shut shop, only a handful of the city's old auction houses remain. The Russell Exchange, for instance. Located around the middle of iconic Russell Street, it rubs shoulders with decades-old Chinese dry cleaning joints, and pubs and eateries from the 1960s. You could easily miss the place. There are no large signages on the road, and several tree branches hide the store's facade.
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