Growing up days – the British Council connection

British Council situated on Theater Road was another wonderful library – its proximity to St Xavier’s College made it an obvious choice for its students. The range of books here was good and its attraction was the magazines that they would issue. Of course, it was not in the immediate vicinity of cinema halls, hence the students who visited were more of the studious types.

I, for my part, was enjoying my new found freedom and would borrow magazines from here and then walk down to the USIS to pick up some books and end my trip with a movie.

The distance from my college to British Council and from there to USIS was quite big but was never a deterrent because as I walked down Chowringhee Road, I would take in the scenes around me. The Chowringhee Road runs parallel to the Maidan – better known as the greenery of Kolkata – and is always busy with fleets of cars, taxis and buses. The cars were private ones, and the buses were Government CSTC buses. And, of course, there re the trams that plied on the fringe of the Maidan. (to be continued…)