Page 266 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - India

264  EASTERN INDIA

A PORTRAIT OF

EASTERN INDIA

The peoples and cultures found in India’s eastern states are as varied as
the landscape itself. Stretching from the crowded metropolis of Kolkata to the
remote tribal settlements of Arunachal Pradesh, which border on China and
Myanmar, the region includes mountainous Sikkim, tropical Odisha, and the
lush valleys of Assam, watered by the mighty Brahmaputra river.
West Bengal, the largest and most densely English education. It witnessed the
populated of the eastern states, offers phenomenon popularly described
the visitor a kaleidoscope of images. as the Bengal Renaissance, a
These range from the mangrove complex dynamic of socio-
swamps of the Sunderbans, religious reform, and literary
home of the Royal Bengal tiger, and artistic efflorescence, with
to the misty tea gardens of Darjeeling, a strong nationalistic under-
and the unique vitality of the state Orchid from Meghalaya current. Kolkata thus
capital Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). became a nodal point in
Kolkata is a city that evokes extreme the formation of a colonial consciousness.
reactions: novelists exhaust metaphors Rabindranath Tagore (see p296), its most
trying to describe it, filmmakers are famous son, lives on through his much-
defeated by it, and even the average non- loved stories, poems, plays and songs.
Bengali agrees that something about the Another cultural icon is the film director
city defines that abstract entity – “culture”. Satyajit Ray, whose work has had a
As a headquarter of the East India Company, profound impact on Asian art cinema.
and later, the capital of British India, the Since 1977, West Bengal has been under
city played an early host to crucial Communist rule. However, in 2011 the Left
Western influences, especially Front, including the Communist Party of

A village pond in Odisha, with a small Hindu temple on its banks

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