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Indian Chinatown’s ‘forgotten’ history comes alive in Kolkata walking tours
- Kolkata’s Tiretta Bazaar is home to a Chinatown that’s hundreds of years old, but while thousands once lived there that number dwindled and the area became less popular
- That’s changing, though, with walking tours and neighbourhood groups keen to encourage interest in history and engage with the local community
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Temple roofs, restaurants, a Sunday breakfast market and character-laden signs are visible reminders of Chinese life in central Kolkata’s Tiretta Bazaar, the oldest such settlement in South Asia.
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They neatly highlight the city’s Chinese settlers and their history, one which in recent decades has been fading knowledge for many, and either unknown or irrelevant to many more.
Today, though, the neighbourhood is on the rise, thanks to visitors interested in such heritage, Instagram influencers, and grassroots organisations keen to spread the word about Chinese immigrants to India.
It is believed this Chinatown, known as Chinapada (neighbourhood of the Chinese people), was first mentioned in the 1790s on a Kolkata map by the British adventurer, surveyor and apparent bassoon player Aaron Upjohn. Chinese migration had begun some two decades earlier, with arrivals seeking new livelihoods as the nation’s maritime network expanded across the South China Sea.
The area was soon known as Tiretta Bazaar, named after an Italian called Edward Tiretta, thought to have been a political refugee around the time Upjohn made his map.
After Tiretta’s arrival in Kolkata, he worked as an architect for the British-owned East India Company. He accrued large tracts of land and on one of them, he built a bazaar. Not all bazaars made their way onto maps, perhaps showing the significance and size of this one which was owned by Tiretta.
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