Stop 01 on the SpiceRoute: Howrah Bridge, Kolkata
If you arrive in Kolkata by train, Howrah is your first hello. If you leave, it's the last thing you look back at. Between those two moments, the bridge sits in the middle of everything: steel lattice over the Hooghly, a river of people and buses and handcarts flowing across it all day long.
We went down to the ghats around five in the evening. That's when the light changes. The sun drops behind the bridge and turns the river copper, the boatmen slow down, and the whole structure becomes a black lace silhouette against an orange sky. Someone is always selling jhalmuri. Someone is always taking a selfie. Someone, usually, is just sitting on the steps, watching the water like they have nowhere else to be.
A bridge without nuts and bolts
Opened in 1943 and later renamed Rabindra Setu, Howrah Bridge is a cantilever bridge held together by rivets, not nuts and bolts. Locals will tell you this with real pride, as if the bridge were a relative who'd done well. In a way it is. For generations it has carried people into the city and back home again.
Why it became our first design
When we started SpiceRoute Stores, the first sketch was always going to be Howrah. We kept it simple: cream lines on sindoor red, with “my Kolkata” written underneath in Bengali. It's the phrase every Kolkatan says, whether they've lived here forty years or left for Bengaluru last week.
Then we made a sunset version, because some views deserve to be carried around all day.
If you go
- Go to the ghats on the Kolkata side around sunset. The view of the bridge with the light behind it is unforgettable.
- Take the ferry across the Hooghly for a few rupees. It's the best seat in the city.
- Walk across early in the morning, when the flower market below is waking up.
Carry this story: Amar Kolkata Badge · Kolkata Sunset Phone Case
