India Guide
West Bengal
Shopping
1 Crossword 8 Elgin Rd Large modern bookshop on two floors, with a good selection including novels, illustrated books and travel, plus a music section and a café.
2 Dey Bros B47 New Market One of several bookshops in this part of the market selling popular books on India and a selection of novels.
3 Earthcare Books 10 Middleton St At the back of a yard, a small and modest but focused bookshop that specializes in books on green issues, and publishes several titles too.
4 Family Book Shop 1-A Park St On the Chowringhee end of Park St, this place is small but crammed full of books.
5 Landmark Emami Shoppers City, 3 Lord Sinha Rd Modern and extensive bookshop in a popular shopping complex.
6 Oxford Book & Stationery 17 Park St An upmarket a/c bookshop with a small music section and the Cha Bar café upstairs; despite the ambience the collection of fiction, coffee-table books, maps, guides, magazines, stationery and postcards is limited.
7 Seagull 31-A SP Mukherjee Rd 
033/2476 5869 
www.seagullindia.com Pleasant little bookshop owned by interesting and creative publishers; their resource centre, a block away, has a library and holds special exhibitions and events.
8 Assam 8 Russel St Part of Assam House, selling handicrafts and textiles from Assam including fabrics in pat and moga, two techniques of silk manufacturing.
9 Central Cottage Industries 7 Chowringhee Rd, Esplanade Part of the national chain, with handicrafts, jewellery, silver, and fabrics from all over India, though the stock is a bit faded.
10 Gurjari Dakhsinapan complex An outstanding selection of Gujarati textiles, including handloom and mirrored cushion covers.
11 Nagaland 13 Shakespeare Sarani A fine assortment of Naga shawls, with red bands and white and blue stripes on black backgrounds. As with Scots tartan, certain patterns denote particular tribes.
12 Sasha 27 Mirza Ghalib St This women's self-help group has a good collection of handicrafts and textiles including kantha.
13 Anokhi 2nd Floor, Forum, 10/3 Elgin Rd Chic hand-printed cottons from this famous chain.
14 Balaram Saha 14/6 Gariahat Rd Tangail, Baluchari and Kantha saris from Bengal.
15 Fabindia 234/3-A AJC Bose Rd Good selection of hand-printed kurtas and salwar kameez as well as shirts, fabrics and furnishings from this trendy chain boutique; they use natural dyes which run, so wash cool and separate colours.
16 Henry's New Market One of Kolkata's better-known Chinese shoe shops.
17 Hemen Roy & Sons Rashbehari Ave, Triangular Park Once master instrument-makers to Ali Akbar Khan, the sarod maestro, though they've lost out to competition in recent years. They now make sitars and tanpuras (the drone instruments used to accompany singing).
18 Manoj Kumar Sardar & Bros 8-A Lalbazaar St, opposite Lalbazaar Police Station Ashok Sardar makes very good sitars and sarods to order, with a small selection of off-the-shelf instruments including Indian-made guitars, and will ship them for you.