Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) the capital of West Bengal, India’s second-biggest city is a daily festival of human existence, simultaneously noble and squalid, cultured and desperate. Friendlier than India’s other metropolises, this is a city you ‘feel’ more than simply visit and it continues to spawn generations of poets, writers, film producers and Nobel Prize winners. As the former capital of British India, Kolkata retains a feast of colonial-era architecture contrasting starkly with urban slums and dynamic new-town suburbs with their air-conditioned shopping malls. Kolkata is the ideal place to experience the mild, fruity tang of Bengali cuisine.