Books
The month-long
Calcutta Book Fair , held on the Maidan near Park Street in January and February, is now among the biggest of its kind in the country, and provides a good opportunity to pick up books at a discount.
Classical Books , Middleton Row. Small, friendly and well worth a browse.
Dey Bros , B47 New Market. One of several bookshops in this part of the market selling popular books on India and a selection of novels.
Family Book Shop , 1A Park St. On the Chowringhee end of Park Street, this place is small but crammed full of books.
Landmark , Emami Shoppers City, 3 Lord Sinha Rd. Modern and extensive bookshop in a popular new shopping complex.
Oxford Book & Stationery , 17 Park St. Completely and tastefully revamped with a/c, an art gallery and a music section; a limited collection of fiction, coffee-table books, maps, guides, magazines, stationery and postcards. There's a cybercaf้ as well as a tea counter - the Cha Bar - but both are expensive, Occasional book launches are held here.
Seagull , 31A SP Mukerjee Rd, Bhowanipur, near Indira Cinema. A modern bookshop owned by the publishing house of the same name: good browsing with interesting titles covering a wide range and strong on the arts.
Emporia
Good selections of most handicrafts, including lace, can be found in various state emporia , many of which are located in the large Dakhsinapan shopping complex south of Dhakuria Bridge near Gol Park. Offering fixed (if slightly high) prices, these are the simplest places to start shopping.
Aavishkar , 20K Park St. Popular shop on the corner with Middleton Row, stocking stationery and cards, music, pottery by local artists, and garden-fresh Darjeeling and Assam teas.
Assam , 8 Russell St. As part of Assam House, the emporium sells handicrafts and textiles from Assam including fabrics in pat and moga , two techniques of silk manufacturing.
Bengal Home Industries , officially 57 Chowringhee Rd but actually just around the corner on AJC Bose Road. Very strong on furnishings and fabrics, plus Bengali handicrafts including terracotta artefacts.
Central Cottage Industries , 7 Chowringhee Rd, Esplanade. Part of the national chain, selling handicrafts from all over India. Along with fabrics, leather, papier-mโch้ from Kashmir and furnishings, there is a small but interesting collection of silver jewellery, with some tribal bracelets.
Gujari , Dakhsinapan complex, near Gol Park. An outstanding selection of Gujarati textiles, including handloom and mirrored cushion covers.
Manipur , 15L Lindsay St, opposite New Market. A selection of souvenirs from Manipur, the northeast hill state bordering Myanmar.
Nagaland , 13 Shakespeare Sarani. A fine assortment of Naga shawls, with red bands and white and blue stripes on black backgrounds. As with Scots tartan, certain patterns denote particular tribes.
Orissa Handicrafts , Dakhsinapan complex, near Gol Park. Very strong on silk and ikat cloth.
Saroj , 3A Camac Street tel 033/229 1002. For the serious collector, a wonderful if expensive collection of art and antiquities including paintings, prints, maps and furniture.
Shyam Ahuja , 10 Azimganj House, 7 Camac St. Upmarket ethnic and designer fabrics and furnishings and an international name in dhurries.
Fabrics and clothing
Calcutta's dress sense, in general, is conservative, and the choice of ready- made garments is not very exciting. However, a wide range of fabrics is available, and all outlets should be able to point you towards a very good (and very cheap) tailor ; there are several around Mirza Ghalib Street and Sudder Street. A handful of upmarket boutiques such as Burlingtons and Benetton, both on Mirza Ghalib Street, cater for the city's wealthy. You can still get shoes made to order at one of the many Chinese shoe shops around Chittaranjan Avenue.
Balaram Saha , 14/6 Gariahat Rd. Tangail, Baluchari and Kantha saris from Bengal.
Handloom House , 2 Lindsay St. Near New Market, a government-run, co-operative shop with a wide range of textiles including cotton and raw silks at reasonable fixed prices.
Henry's , New Market. One of Calcutta's better-known Chinese shoe shops.
Indian Silk House , AC Market, 1 Shakespeare Sarani. Lots of printed silks.
Jaggi & Sons , Lindsay Street. One of several good tailors in the city with a long tradition of formal men's tailoring.
Kolhapuri Centre , Gariahat Road, Ballygunge Phari. Dedicated to selling Kolhapuri sandals and shoes - painful at first, but very comfortable if you persist; there's another branch on College Street.
Musical instruments
Calcutta is renowned for its sitar and sarod makers - expect to pay upwards of Rs5000 for a decent instrument. Shops around Sudder Street are strongest on Western instruments but their traditional instruments are invariably of inferior quality and may be beyond tuning; Rabindra Sarani (Chitpore Road) has several shops but quality is suspect. Calcutta must produce more tabla players than any other Indian city, with Anindo Chatterjee being the most highly acclaimed at present; tabla-makers can be found at Kalighat , next to Kalighat Bridge and at Keshab Sen Street off College Street.
Hemen Roy & Sons , Rashbehari Avenue, Triangular Park. Once master instrument-makers to Ali Akbar Khan, the sarod maestro, but they have lost their crown to competition in recent years. They now make sitars and tanburas as well.
Hiren Roy & Son , Rashbehari Avenue, Gariahat. The most famous sitar-maker in the country whose clients include Imrat Khan, Vilayat Khan and Ravi Shankar; off-the-shelf instruments available.
Manoj Kumar Sardar & Bros , 8A Lalbazaar St, opposite Lalbazaar Police Station. Ashok Sardar makes very good sitars and sarods to order, with a small selection of off-the-shelf instruments; he also sells Indian-made guitars.
Mridangam , 114/10A Hazra Road, Kalighat. Best of the three tabla-making businesses a few minutes' walk from the Kali temple.
Naskar & Sons , 14 Ganga Prasad Mukherji Rd, Bhowanipur. Behind the busy market of Jhagu Bazaar off S P Mukherjee Road, Naskar makes good sitars but is especially renowned for his tanburas , the drone instruments used to accompany singing.
