Oh? Calcutta?

Our expressions of amusement clearly disturbed the dozen or so other spectators at the low-budget sound and light show patently overbilled as “Pride and Glory,” a feel-good promotional slide presentation about the beauty and charm of Calcutta, complete with lilting jingle. This was, after all, the city that Westerners associated with the Black Hole and whose reputation, as dim as it was, had actually darkened in recent years through the publicity about Mother Teresa’s noble work.

Maybe you had to be an outsider to appreciate the irony of an Indian “Pride and Glory” exercise happening in the shadow of the oh-so-British Victoria Memorial. My wife, Stacie, and I were sitting in the Maidan, the city’s huge central park. In front of us was the enormous, domed white marble museum dedicated to Queen Victoria and that part of Calcutta’s history that the Chamber of Commerce production conveniently overlooked: the 139 years--1772 to 1911--when this was the capital of the British Raj and the second-largest city in the British Empire.

How soon they forget. But in our five days in what is now the capital of the state of West Bengal and home to 11 million to 15 million souls--an accurate count is impossible--we couldn’t overlook Calcutta’s past, even if we wanted to. Despite all the English-to-Bengali name changes, including the official change to “Kolkuta” last year, Calcutta is essentially the same city physically that the British vacated upon India’s independence in 1947.

Calcutta’s ubiquitous aura of dilapidation is no one’s definition of charming. The Maidan, the British military encampment that is now the city’s vast (9 1/2 square miles) central park, is one big public latrine, and the diesel-belching trucks, buses and taxis make Calcutta an asthmatic’s nightmare.

But for all its flaws, Calcutta is the most fascinating of India’s major cities. At least that was our assessment after mostly self-guided exploration during a monthlong ramble around the country last year. Yes, we saw heartbreaking squalor (and we can only imagine the heartache of thousands left homeless in floods in September). But we also saw much to intrigue and enjoy: Calcutta’s extensive, if neglected, colonial charm; its rich Bengali heritage; its ongoing struggle to make the most of what nature and human endeavor have bequeathed it.

The best place to begin appreciating Calcutta is at the beginning: the Kali Temple, reachable by India’s lone--and surprisingly adequate--subway line. “Calcutta,” you see, is the mangled English pronunciation of “Kalikata,” “city of Kali.” In the Hindu pantheon, Kali is revered as a mother figure, the giver of life, and also as the destroyer of evil. She usually is depicted as having many arms and weapons, and wearing human skulls and bones. Blood sacrifices--traditionally black goats--figure in her worship, the blood representing the life force that Kali can bestow or take.

Her temple is a cramped, grubby and, yes, bloody affair, teeming with devotees. Foreigners can’t avoid being latched onto by self-appointed “guides” who lead them through the standard obeisance: red hibiscus flowers thrown over a statue of Kali in a recessed inner sanctum, and a donation, for which your forehead receives a red tika, or dot, administered by one of the dhoti-clad attendants.

Kali’s next-door neighbor is Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity Hospital for the Dying and Destitute, where a different sort of tourist ethic prevails. Visitors are encouraged to enter a ground-floor ward and observe. Stacie and I knew that what awaited us was not pretty, but we wanted to witness, if only for a moment, the celebrated work being carried on in Mother Teresa’s name--the work of giving dignity to the dying.

Presided over by the sisters in their trademark habits of white linen with blue-striped trim, volunteers were attending the patients, serving food, administering IVs and changing dressings and bedclothes while rickety ceiling fans struggled to keep the stultifying tropical air circulating.

On this particular afternoon, the ward information board counted 90 patients--47 males and 43 females--with one new admission and four deaths. Hard is the heart that can leave this scene of pathos without making a generous donation.

Central Calcutta invites pedestrian exploration, but to see the outlying sites requires a ride. The Indian Tourism Development Corp. and the West Bengal Tourist Authority operate eight-hour “luxury” bus tours for the bargain price of 100 rupees, about $2.40 when we were there.

We boarded one of the tour buses on Shakespeare Sarani, a major avenue in Calcutta’s upscale Chowringhee district. Off we rode through the Maidan, which on Saturday mornings swarms with white-clad boys aspiring to become India’s next cricket superstar. We looped around the Raj Bavan, the former British governor’s residence, modeled after Lord Curzon’s palatial manor in Derbyshire; in 1998 it was the commodious home of the state’s communist governor. Then it was up and across the Howrah Bridge over the Hugli River, the western channel of the Ganges.

West of the distinctive red-and-cream brick Gothic Howrah Railway Station is the site of Calcutta’s most “famous” slum, immortalized in Dominique LaPierre’s long-running 1988 bestseller, “The City of Joy.” Money came pouring in after the novel’s publication, and the City of Joy has become just another, slightly more modern, scruffy urban neighborhood.

Having seen the main sites on the tour, we were free to explore the rest of Calcutta at leisure while the hotel dhobi-wallah (washerman) pounded our dirty clothes clean (more or less) at the public “laundry” on the stony banks of the Hugli.

Downtown Calcutta is a grid of banks and government buildings centered around the old Dalhousie Square, now BBD Bagh (the letters stand for the names of three Bengali heroes). Its spring-fed reservoir drew the attention of English merchant Job Charnock, who chose it as the site of the East India Company’s warehouse in 1690. To the north is the huge Writers’ Building, a Victorian edifice that housed the East India Company, whose clerks were called “writers.”

To the west is the silver-domed General Post Office. On that site, when it was Ft. William, stood the infamous “black hole of Calcutta.” In 1756 the impetuous 19-year-old nawab (ruler) of Murshidabad, Siraj-ud-Daula, attacked the British garrison holed up inside the fort. Of the 146 prisoners his men force-fitted into the 18-by-15-foot guardroom for the night, only 23 survived. Sir Robert Clive avenged the massacre the next year, killing the nawab and securing Bengal for the crown.

Mother India, in turn, was not kind to her Anglo occupiers. The walls of St. John’s Church (1787) are lined with plaques eulogizing the hundreds of expatriates whose earthly tenure expired before their administrative one. Disease was the No. 1 killer, but the excesses of colonial life claimed many as well, including Sir Thomas D’Oyly, through “the inordinate use of the hokkah” (water pipe), and Rose Aylmer, through “an addiction to pineapples.”

Inured by now to the sight of men working as beasts of burden, we decided to hire a rickshaw. Qualms notwithstanding, you are certainly helping your “puller” and his family by giving him the opportunity to make a living.

Our puller let us off near the deceptively named New Market, a Victorian red brick hall just off Chowringhee. From there it was but a short walk past dozens of humble street cafes to Calcutta’s best dining experience, Aaheli, where for $9 each we worked our way through a traditional Bengali feast. And “work your way” is entirely accurate. You are supposed to finish each of the seven mounds of food--most of them unrecognizable to us--before moving on to the next, because they are arranged in a linear progression of tastes that goes from mild to spicy and back to mild. Alcohol is not served, and in the purest Bengali tradition, neither is silverware.

We walked back to our hotel, the Great Eastern, where our laundry was stacked on the bed in neat piles, each piece tagged to identify it among the thousands our dhobi-wallah had washed that day.

And so it is with Calcutta: The city that at first exposure seems alarmingly overwhelming turns out also to be reassuringly neat and orderly.

GUIDEBOOK / Captivated by the Colonial Charm of Calcutta

Getting there: Flights from L.A. to Calcutta involve a plane change; most also involve a change of airline. The three airlines that fly all the way to Calcutta are Singapore Airlines, with restricted round-trip fares starting at $1,700; Thai Airways, starting at $2,320; and British Airways, $2,905.

When to go: Although it is always warm in tropical Calcutta, the mildest, least rainy season is roughly November till March.

Where to stay: At the upper end is the Oberoi Grand, 15 Jawaharlal Nehru Road, telephone 011-91-33-249-2323, fax 011-91-33-249-1217, Internet https://www.oberoihotels.com/calcm.htm. Doubles in this luxury hotel, which caters to business travelers, begin at $250 a night.

For more budget-minded travelers, the Great Eastern Hotel, 1,2,3 Old Court House St.; tel. 011-91-33-248-2331, fax 011-91-33-248-0289. Rates for doubles with air-conditioning in the rambling, somewhat rumpled hotel (founded in 1840) begin at $43.

The Fairlawn Hotel, 13A Sudder St., tel. 011-91-33-245-1510, fax 011-91-33-244-1835, Internet https://www.fairlawnhotel.com, has a funky, colonial feeling. The building has been here more than two centuries. Doubles begin about $60.

Where to eat: Even though Calcutta is the capital of West Bengal, most of the good Indian restaurants serve tandoori or Mughal food. The Amber Hotel, 11 Waterloo St., is reputed to be the best; local tel. 248-6520. We paid $1.50 to $2.50 for entrees, and $1.50 for a bottle of the local Kingfisher Beer. (Most restaurants do not serve alcohol.)

For a true Bengali feast served in a traditionally decorated room, go to Aaheli in the Peerless Hotel, 12 Jawaharlal Nehru Road; tel. 228-0301. The all-inclusive meal is about $8, standard entrees $5 to $6.

Many other good spots can be found along Park Street.

For more information: Government of India Tourist Office, 3550 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 204, Los Angeles, CA 90010; tel. (213) 380-8855, fax (213) 380-6111, Internet https://www.tourindia.com or https://www.tourisminindia.com.