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Kolkata has always been a city with opinions. It served as capital of British India until 1911, produced Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, and became the city where the independence movement crystallized into political force. When the British moved the capital to Delhi, Kolkata did not stop mattering; it simply argued more eloquently. The tradition of street-corner debate, of coffee house intellectual culture, of theater, poetry, and political outrage never left. The Indian Coffee House on College Street, open since 1942, still serves the same strong coffee to students and writers who treat the place like a seminar room.

The Howrah Bridge, a cantilever span completed in 1943 that carries an estimated 100,000 vehicles and countless pedestrians every day, is possibly the best single image of Kolkata's intensity.

The Victoria Memorial -- enormous in white Makrana marble, finished in 1921 -- sits in its southern gardens as if the British Empire never quite accepted it was over. Kalighat temple is among the holiest Shakti shrines in India, and Durga Puja turns the city every October into something that must be witnessed rather than described: temporary outdoor shrines of staggering elaboration fill every neighborhood for five consecutive nights. The street food alone -- kati rolls from Nizam's, phuchka from corner vendors, jhalmuri mixed to order -- is a serious civic institution.