ON a rainy day in the late 17th century, an enterprising agent of the British East India Company named Job Charnock sailed along the Hooghly River, a tributary of the Ganges that flows from high in the Himalayas into the Bay of Bengal, and pitched a tent on its swampy banks. The company bought three riverside villages. Soon they would become a port - flowing with opium, muslin and jute - and then, as the capital of British India until 1912, draw conquerors, dreamers and hungry folk from all over...
Full Story: The New York Times
