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Freedom comes in many garbs. On 15 September 1835, Charles Metcalfe, then acting Governor General, repealed the 1823 licensing regulation and granted complete freedom of press in India. The move made him hugely unpopular with the company directors in Leadenhall Street. As a result his provisional tenure as Governor General was not made permanent. In just over a year Metcalfe moved on but he left such a lasting impression on the people of Bengal, that they got together and erected a grand edifice on the Strand overlooking the Hooghly.

Metcalfe Hall designed and built to mirror the great temples of Athens was completed between 1840 and 1844. The Calcutta Public Library with Dwarakanath Tagore as its first proprietor promptly moved in. Metcalfe himself donated over 4,600 books from the library of the College of Fort William. This donation and several others of rare books and journals from the time formed the genesis of the National Library of India.

Metcalfe Hall lived many lives. During the war years of the forties it was the Foreign and Military Secretariat and thereafter a base for the Archeological Survey of India. And then it stood forlorn for many years, dusty and forgotten on the Strand as traffic and the Hooghly ebbed past.
Last year, it had a rebirth. The ASI hired a young Kolkatan, a former graduate of the National Institute of Design to reimagine the city in a permanent exhibition. What followed is a veritable feast of visual treat. In a building originally designed to celebrate freedom of the press, now celebrates the city through dance, music, theatre, cinema, illustration and polygot literature.

Freedom comes in many garbs. If you are in Kolkata and think you know the city, then stop by where Hare Street meets the Strand. ‘Ami Kolkata’ might urge you to think afresh.

Kolkata, August 2019