24 August: Kolkata (formerly Calcutta)

On this date in 1690, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, was founded when Job Charnock, an employee of the English East India Company went to a small fishing village called Kolikata to establish a base for the company. The current city grew from there. It was known as Calcutta until 2001 when the name of the city was changed to Kolkata.

1. The name derives from the land of the goddess Kali. She is considered the patron deity of the city and there is a festival held in her honour during October and November.
2. Nicknames given to the city include City of Joy, "City of Dreadful Light" (from a poem by Rudyard Kipling, who visited as a newspaper correspondent), "City of Furious, Creative Energy", City of Palaces, City of Processions and the Cultural Capital of India.
3. The river Hooghly runs through the middle of the city, which is located in the Ganges River Basin. Between Kolkata and the Bay of Bengal is the Sundarbans National Park, home to man-eating Tigers.
4. It has the oldest golf club in India, the Royal Calcutta Golf Club, founded in 1829. Its polo club is the oldest in the world.
5. Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, was born there in 1861. Today there is a bridge named after him, the Rabindra Setu.
6. It was the adopted home of the Albanian nun Mother Teresa. She arrived in Calcutta in 1931 and devoted her life to helping the poor and needy there. The Kalighat metro station contains a large mosaic of her.
7. In the Botanical Garden there is the Great Banyan tree, which is over 250 years old and is the largest tree in the world in terms of area covered.
8. One of Kolkata's darkest days in history was the Black Hole of Calcutta. The Black Hole was a dungeon cell in Fort William, which was built by the British to defend their trading interests. It was 18 feet by 14 feet (5.5m x 4m), designed to hold two prisoners. However, on 20 June 1756 when the fort was captured by the Bengali Nawab army, 146 people were thrown into the cell. Only 23 came out alive. Today there is an obelisk in memory of the people who died in the Black Hole.
9. Kolkata's sister cities include Karachi in Pakistan, Naples in Italy and Dallas, Texas.
10. Kolkata has one of the largest book fairs in the world. The second hand book market in College Street is the second largest in the world and it's said you can find any book which has ever existed in there if you look hard enough!

My latest books

Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

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Completes The Raiders Trilogy. 

Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two