Kolkata

Marble Palace is a palatial nineteenth-century mansion in North Kolkata. It is located at 46, Muktaram Babu Street, Kolkata 700007. It is one of the... best-preserved and most elegant houses of nineteenth-century Calcutta. The mansion is famous for its marble walls and floors, from which its name derives. The house was built in 1835 by Raja Rajendra Mullick, a wealthy Bengali merchant with a passion for collecting works of art. The house continues to be a residence for his descendants, and the current occupants are the family of Raja Rajendra Mullick Bahadur. Raja Rajendra Mullick was the adopted son of Nilmoni Mullick, who built a Jagannath temple which predates Marble Palace, and still stands within the premises, but is only accessible to members of the family. The house is basically Neoclassical in style, while the plan with its open courtyards is largely traditional Bengali. Adjacent to the court-yard, there is a thakur-dalan, or place of worship for members of the family. The three-storey building has tall fluted Corinthian pillars and ornamented verandas with fretwork and sloping roofs, built in the style of a Chinese pavilion.
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Eden Gardens is a cricket ground in Kolkata, India. It is the home of the Bengal cricket team and the Indian Premier League's Kolkata Knight Riders,... as well as being a Test,One Day International and Twenty20 International ground. It is the largest cricket stadium in India by seating capacity. It is widely acknowledged to be the most iconic cricket stadium in the country and one of the most iconic stadiums in the world. It is the second-largest cricket stadium in the world by seating capacity. Eden Gardens has been called "cricket's answer to the Colosseum". Eden Gardens has hosted 37 Test matches. Established in 1864, Eden Gardens currently holds 90,000 people following renovations for the Cricket World Cup 2011; a capacity down from an estimated 100,000 before the upgrade. Prior to the 1987 World Cup, the capacity was said to be approximately 120,000; however, no official figures have been recorded. Nevertheless, it will remain second biggest cricket stadium in the world, behind the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia and Eden Gardens is also the second largest stadium in India behind the Salt Lake Stadium also situated in Kolkata.
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The Howrah Bridge is a cantilever bridge that spans the Hooghly River in West Bengal, India. Commissioned in 1943, the bridge was originally named... the New Howrah Bridge, because it links the city of Howrah to its twin city, Kolkata . On 14 June 1965 it was renamed Rabindra Setu, after Rabindranath Tagore a great Bengal poet and the first Indian Nobel laureate. However it is still popularly known as the Howrah Bridge. The bridge is one of the four on the Hooghly River and is a famous symbol of Kolkata and West Bengal. The other bridges are the Vidyasagar Setu , the Vivekananda Setu and the newly built Nivedita Setu. Apart from bearing the stormy weather of the Bay of Bengal region, it successfully bears the weight of a daily traffic of approximately 100,000 vehicles and possibly more than 150,000 pedestrians, easily making it the busiest cantilever bridge in the world. The third longest cantilever bridge at the time of its construction, it is currently the sixth longest bridge of its type in the world.
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The Shaheed Minar , formerly known as the Ochterlony Monument , is a monument in Kolkata that was erected in 1825 by Major-general Sir David... Ochterlony, commander of the British East India Company, to commemorate both his successful defense of Delhi against the Marathas in 1804 and the victory of the East India Company’s armed forces over the Gurkhas in the Anglo-Nepalese War. The monument was constructed in his memory. It was designed by J.P. Parker and paid for from public funds. In 1969, it was rededicated to the memory of the martyrs of the Indian freedom movement and hence renamed the "Shahid Minar," which means "martyrs monument" in both Bengali and Hindi, by the then United Front Government in memory of the martyrs of the Indian independence movement. The present government has decided to illuminate the tower during evenings and allow visitors to the top. The last persons who went up there were former governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi and his family. Commonly referred to as the Monument, the Shahid Minar is located at Esplanade in central Kolkata in the north east facet of the Maidan the tower is 48 m high.
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Hemanta Mukherjee is a playback singer, film score composer and film producer.

William Daniel "Danny" Hillis is an American inventor, entrepreneur, and author. He co-founded Thinking Machines Corporation, a company that... developed the Connection Machine, a parallel supercomputer designed by Hillis at MIT. He is also co-founder of the Long Now Foundation, Applied Minds, Metaweb, and author of The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work. Daniel Hillis was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1956. His father, William Hillis, was a US Air Force epidemiologist studying hepatitis in Africa and relocated with his family through Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, and Kenya. He spent a brief part of his childhood in Calcutta, India when his father was a visiting faculty at ISI, Calcutta. During these years the young Hillis was home schooled by his mother Aryge Briggs Hillis, a biostatistician, and developed an early appreciation for mathematics and biology. His younger brother is David Hillis, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Texas at Austin, and his sister is Argye E. Hillis, a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University.
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Rani Mukerji is an Indian film actress who works in Hindi movies. Born to the Mukherjee-Samarth family, Mukerji never harbored any ambitions to... become an actress, but eventually joined films on the insistence of her parents. She made her acting debut with Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat , and subsequently had her first, and still biggest commercial success with Karan Johar's romance Kuch Kuch Hota Hai , which won her a Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress. She later starred in several films that fared below expectations, but in 2002 she tasted success with the critically acclaimed drama Saathiya for which she received numerous awards and nominations, including her first Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress. In 2004, her performances in the hit romantic comedy Hum Tum and the critically acclaimed Yuva earned her the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress awards, respectively at the 50th Filmfare Awards, making her the first actress to win two major awards in the same year.
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Kazi Nazrul Islam , sobriquet Bidrohi Kobi , was a Bengali poet, musician and revolutionary who pioneered poetic works espousing intense spiritual... rebellion against fascism and oppression. His poetry and nationalist activism earned him the popular title of Bidrohi Kobi . Accomplishing a large body of acclaimed works through his life, Nazrul is officially recognised as the national poet of Bangladesh and commemorated in India. Born into a Muslim quazi family in India, Nazrul received religious education and worked as a muezzin at a local mosque. He learned of poetry, drama, and literature while working with theatrical groups. After serving in the British Indian Army, Nazrul established himself as a journalist in Kolkata . He assailed the British Raj in India and preached revolution through his poetic works, such as "Bidrohi" and "Bhangar Gaan" , as well as his publication "Dhumketu" . His impassioned activism in the Indian independence movement often led to his imprisonment by British authorities.
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Gauhar Jaan was an Indian singer and dancer or a tawaif from Calcutta. She was one of the first performers to record music on 78 rpm records in... India, and released by Gramophone Company of India. Gauhar Jaan was born as Angelina Yeoward in on 26 June 1873 in Azamgarh, of Armenian descent. Her father, William Robert Yeoward, worked as an engineer in a dry ice factory, and married her mother, Victoria Hemmings, in 1872. Victoria, an Indian by birth, had been trained in music and dance. In 1879 the marriage ended, causing hardships to both mother and daughter, who later migrated to Banaras in 1881, with a Muslim nobleman, 'Khursheed', who appreciated Victoria's music more than her husband. Later, Victoria, converted to Islam and changed Angelina's name to 'Gauhar Jaan' and hers to 'Malka Jaan'.
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Shammi Kapoor was an Indian film actor and director. He was a prominent lead actor in Hindi cinema from the late 1950s until the early 1970s and... played supportng roles from 1974 to 2011. Shammi Kapoor is hailed as one of the most entertaining lead actors that Hindi cinema has ever produced and his notable films include Tumsa Nahin Dekha, Dil Deke Dekho, Junglee, Dil Tera Diwana, Professor, China Town, Rajkumar, Kashmir Ki Kali, Janwar, Teesri Manzil, An Evening in Paris, Bramhachari, Andaz and Vidhaata. He received the Filmfare Best Actor Award in 1968 for his performance in Brahmachari and Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for Vidhaata in 1982. He was given the name Shamsher Raj Kapoor at his birth in Mumbai to film and theatre actor Prithviraj Kapoor and Ramsharni Kapoor née Mehra. Shammi was the second of the three sons born to Prithviraj , both successful Bollywood actors. Though born in Mumbai, he spent a major portion of his childhood in Kolkata, where his father was involved with New Theatres Studios, acting in films.
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Shashi Kapoor , born Balbir Raj Prithviraj Kapoor on 18 March 1938 in Calcutta , is an award-winning Indian film actor and film producer. He has also... been film director and assistant director in Hindi Films. He is a member of the Kapoor family, a film dynasty in India's Bollywood cinema. He is the younger brother of Raj Kapoor and Shammi Kapoor, the son of Prithviraj Kapoor, the widower of Jennifer Kendal, and the father of Karan Kapoor, Kunal Kapoor, and Sanjana Kapoor. He is remembered for many hit Hindi films like Jab Jab Phool Khile, Kanyadaan, Pyar Ka Mausam, Ek Shriman Ek Shrimati , Haseena Maan Jayegi, Sharmeelee, Aa Gale Lag Jaa, Fakira, Phaansi, Chor Machaye Shor, Mukti, Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Heeralal Pannalal, Junoon, Swayamvar and many such films, including ones he starred in with Pran like Chori Mera Kaam, Phaansi, Shankar Dada, Chakkar Pe Chakkar and with Amitabh Bachchan, such as Deewar, Namak Halaal. He has also played leading roles in a number of English-speaking Indian films, including the very first Merchant Ivory production The Householder followed by such as Shakespeare-Wallah, Bombay Talkie, Heat and Dust, etc.
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Rani Mukerji is an Indian film actress who works in Hindi movies. Born to the Mukherjee-Samarth family, Mukerji never harbored any ambitions to... become an actress, but eventually joined films on the insistence of her parents. She made her acting debut with Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat , and subsequently had her first, and still biggest commercial success with Karan Johar's romance Kuch Kuch Hota Hai , which won her a Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress. She later starred in several films that fared below expectations, but in 2002 she tasted success with the critically acclaimed drama Saathiya for which she received numerous awards and nominations, including her first Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress. In 2004, her performances in the hit romantic comedy Hum Tum and the critically acclaimed Yuva earned her the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress awards, respectively at the 50th Filmfare Awards, making her the first actress to win two major awards in the same year.
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Alka Yagnik is an Indian singer. Among the best-known playback singers of Hindi cinema, she is a record seven-time winner of the Filmfare Award for... Best Female Playback Singer from a record of 35 nominations, a two-time recipient of the National Film Award as well as several other music awards listed below. Further, as many as 20 of her tracks feature in BBC's "Top 40 Bollywood Soundtracks of all time" review. Alka Yagnik was born in Kolkata on March 20, 1966. Her mother Shubha Yagnik was a singer of Indian classical music. She received her school education from Modern High School for Girls. At the age of 6, she started singing for Akashvani , Calcutta. At age 10, her mother brought her to Bombay as a child singer. She was advised to wait until her voice matured, but her mother remained determined. On a subsequent visit, Alka got a letter of introduction to Raj Kapoor from his Kolkata distributor. Kapoor heard the girl and sent her with a letter to noted music director Laxmikant.
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Nargis Dutt , born Fatima Rashid but known by her screen name, Nargis, was an Indian film actress. She is widely regarded as one of the greatest... actresses in the history of Hindi cinema. She made her screen debut as a child in Talash-E-Haq in 1935, but her acting career began in 1942 with Tamanna. During a career that spanned from the 1940s to the 60s, Nargis appeared in numerous commercially successful as well as critically appreciated films, many of which featured her alongside actor and filmmaker Raj Kapoor. One of her best-known roles was that of Radha in the Academy Award-nominated Mother India , a performance that won her Best Actress trophy at the Filmfare Awards. In 1958, Nargis married her Mother India co-star, actor Sunil Dutt, and left the film industry. She would appear infrequently in films during the 60s. Some of her films of this period include the drama Raat Aur Din , for which she got the inaugural National Film Award for Best Actress. Along with her husband, Nargis formed the Ajanta Arts Cultural Troupe, which roped in several leading actors and singers of the time and held stage shows at border areas.
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Mithun Chakraborty Miṭhun Chôkroborti, born as Gouranga Chakraborty on June 16, 1950 is an Indian film actor, social activist, and... entrepreneur, who has won three National Film Awards. He made his acting debut with the arthouse drama Mrigayaa , for which he won his first National Film Award for Best Actor. He gained a fan following as a dancing star and went on to establish himself as one of the most popular actors of India, particularly recognized for his role as street dancer Jimmy in the 1982 Bollywood movie Disco Dancer. He also attracted worldwide audiences, particularly in the former Soviet Union where he became a household name for his role in Disco Dancer. He later won two more National Film Awards for his performances in Bengali film Tahader Katha and Hindi film Swami Vivekananda . Chakraborty has appeared in about 400 films including Bengali, Oriya and Bhojpuri pictures. He owns the Monarch Group, which has interests in the hospitality sector and educational sector. Mithun Chakraborty was born in Kolkata, West Bengal, to a Bengali Hindu Brahmin family.
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Kabir Suman is a Kolkata-based modern Bengali singer-songwriter, musician, poet, journalist, political activist, TV presenter, and occasional actor.... Since May 2009, he is a member of parliament of India in the 15th Lok Sabha, having been elected from the Jadavpur constituency in Kolkata on an All India Trinamool Congress ticket. He changed his name from Suman Chattopadhyay to 'Kabir Suman' when he converted to Islam. He shot to fame in the 1990s with albums such as Tomake Chai and Boshe Anko . Suman was born on March 16, 1949 to Sudhindranath and Uma Chattopadhyay at Cuttack, Orissa. He was trained in classical music in his childhood, under the tutelage of this father. He graduated from Jadavpur University with an honours in English Literature and a diploma in French language. He then worked briefly in All India Radio and the United Bank of India. Suman left for Europe in the mid seventies, and worked as a radio journalist in the Voice of Germany from 1975-79.
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