Kolkata Dating - How to Meet and Date Single Men and Women in Calcutta

Kolkata is the largest city in eastern India, both in terms of population and size. Formerly known as Calcutta, the city served as the capital of British India until 1911 and became an important center of nationalist and then leftist political movement in the country. After decades of economic stagnation, Kolkata has once again emerged as the City of Joy, which offers its people the very best of socializing opportunities.

The demographic profile of Kolkata makes it evident that it is one of the most densely-populated urban areas in the country and even of the world. While the 2001 Census of India put the population of Kolkata’s metropolitan area at 13 million plus, more recent estimates like the one provided by the “World Gazetteer: India – Largest Cities and Towns and Statistics of their Population” push it up to around fifteen million. Like all the biggest metropolitan cities, Kolkata too has a sizeable chunk of migrants in its population. Most of the migrants are comprised of laborers and blue collar workers from the neighboring states of Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. It is only very recently with the boom in IT and ITES sectors in Kolkata that professionals and trainees from other parts of India are setting up base in the city. However being the premier educational destination in entire eastern India, Kolkata has always attracted students and researchers from the North-eastern states of India like Assam, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura. Other minorities include a sizeable Marwari community who were one of the earliest settlers, Chinese, Anglo-Indians, Nepalis, Tibetans and even a few remaining Parsis. All these factors make Kolkata’s population a distinctly multi-cultural one, which in turn has a definite influence on dating trends.

Feted as the cultural capital of India, Kolkata provides many opportunities to art lovers to mingle and discover equally enthusiastic partners. The city is home to some of the richest traditions in performing arts like music, dance, elocution and theater in the country. Rabindra Sadan, Nazrul Mancha, Sisir Mancha, Gorky Sadan and the newly-renovated Town Hall are some venues which regularly host performances. The Nandan complex of cinema halls, theaters, galleries and convention centers is a favorite haunt of art lovers, culture aficionados and students who can be found appreciating the finer nuances of Kafka, Kurosawa or just sipping tea from an earthen cup even on the hottest days of Kolkata’s summer.

Kolkata is a veritable treasure-house of museums, historical monuments and places of beautiful architecture. Visits to the Victoria Memorial, St Paul’s Cathedral, Armenian Church, the National Library and the Indian Museum often prove more satisfying to Kolkata’s couples than the bar-and-nightclub routine. The adjacent township of Salt Lake is in fact home to several culture hubs like Swabhumi and the Eastern Zonal Cultural Center which showcase the best of visual, performing and ethnic arts in the region. These venues regularly host plays, music and dance performances during evenings and on weekends which in fact turn into popular meeting places for the young men and women of Kolkata.

The city also hosts several festivals and fairs, particularly in the time from November to February. Some of the popular among these are the Kolkata Book Fair, the Salt Lake Mela, Handicrafts Expo, the Leather Expo and many others. These fairs and exhibitions make for exciting outings for Kolkata’s couples, especially the young college-going crowd. However the most eagerly-anticipated festival in Kolkata has to be the Durga Puja. This encompasses five days of communal fun and feasting at Puja Pandals when young men and women turn out in their attractive best to check each other out. The festivities have long breached their religious boundaries and are now a blaze of shopping, partying, feasting, socializing and dating, much in the manner of Navratri celebrations in Gujarat or even Christmas in Western societies.

The arrival of the software and hospitality sectors in Kolkata during the early years of this century was greatly responsible for its economic revival after an almost three-decade period of stagnation. The establishment of the IT zone in Sector V of Salt Lake was the first step in welcoming back the private and multinational companies. Almost immediately other major names in retail, infrastructure, real estate, hospitality and education sectors followed and Kolkata once again became the place to invest in. All this had a large impact on the social and recreational map of the city. Young professionals were now back in Kolkata and they were earning more than ever. To cater for their lifestyle demands, new shopping malls sprouted accompanied by multi-plex movie theaters, swanky fast-food joints, coffee shops, lounge bars and pubs. The City Center in Salt Lake, Forum on Elgin Road, South City on Prince Anwar Shah Road are currently the most upscale malls in Kolkata where not only the latest fashion and global brands share shelf space but where the young singles of Kolkata flock to hang-out and meet potential partners.

The colonial legacy of Kolkata is apparent in the large number of elite clubs in the city like the Calcutta Club, the Royal Calcutta Golf Club, Tollygunge Club, the Bengal Club and CCFC. For long the cultural and sports events at these clubs provided the most high-profile meeting opportunities for the elite among Kolkata’s singles. However with the arrival of newer clubs like the Saturday Club as well as greater number of trendy pubs and nightclubs, the recreational scene in Kolkata has changed. Among the nightspots most popular with the hip Calcuttan crowd are Venom, Soho, Shisha, Tantra, Someplace Else at the park, Dublin at ITC as well as Underground at HHI. The Park Street of Kolkata is legendary for its pubs, coffee shops and restaurants featuring live music. Flury’s, Peter Cat, Trincas, Mocambo are among the destinations here which continue to draw loyalists among the Kolkata foodies. However new fine dining places like the Blue Potato, Mainland China and Oh Calcutta make for equally charming dating venues for those with deeper pockets.

Calcutta is hardly new to the dating scene since young college-going girls and guys here have long gone out with each other for plays at Rabindra Sadan and walks on the Maidan. However dating opportunities in the Western style are a relatively late arrival but fast catching up, probably for all the lost time.