Let’s help you
plan your journey
Explore responsibly, discover offbeat places, guided by locals, rooted in culture.
Let’s help you
plan your journey
Explore responsibly, discover offbeat places, guided by locals, rooted in culture.
Soumen Bhowmick
Soumen Bhowmick founded Pollen Dots in 2024 to plan journeys across India and Bhutan. He works in the Commercial Department of Indian Railways, where he has been since 2000. From 2016 to 2020 he was Head of Business Development and Partnerships at ScoutMyTrip, a community-driven road trip planning platform. There he built a nationwide network of local Scouts who helped travellers on the road, and grew the Road Trippers Club to 16 Indian cities. As a core member of Devil On Wheels, he helped travellers plan Himalayan trips and started Spreading Smiles. He has driven solo from Arunachal to Goa and from Himachal to Karnataka, and has run his own caravan for more than ten years. His photographs have won national and international salon awards, and his writing has appeared in Outlook Traveller.
What to buy in West Bengal is a question about towns and methods, because a protected name attaches to those and to nothing else. The 2017 Geographical Indication on the rasogolla registered one version made one way in one place, and Odisha holds a separate registration of its own granted two years later. Both stand, so the sweet carries two protected names and the register never ruled on where it began.
A Geographical Indication sits in a public register that anyone can search. A short guide to getting ready for a trip in India covers papers and bookings.
Six things, and each one comes from a named district.
Darjeeling tea comes from the north of the state and holds the first Geographical Indication granted in India. We cover North Bengal separately, including the Dooars.
A silk saree from Bishnupur with narrative panels woven into the pallu.
The panels carry figures and scenes rather than a repeating pattern, which is what separates it from every other Bengal silk. The weaving is done on a jacquard loom and a single saree takes weeks.
Swarnachari is the same weave worked in gold and silver thread. It is the heavier and more expensive of the two.
Buy at Bishnupur itself or at the state handloom outlets, where the weaver society is named on the bill.
A power loom copy sells for a fraction of the price and the figures in the pallu come out flat and repeated. On a handloom piece the scenes change across the width.
A quilt built from layered old cotton, stitched through with a running stitch that becomes the pattern.
The stitch holds the layers together and draws the design at the same time, so the decoration is the construction. Old sarees and dhotis are the usual material.
The work is done across the eastern districts of the state. Pieces run from handkerchief size to full bedspreads, and the price follows the stitch count rather than the size.
Older kanthas carry figures, boats, fish and borders drawn entirely in the running stitch. Newer ones are often plain quilting on new cloth, which is a different thing sold under the same name.
Panchmura, a potters' village in Bankura district.
The Bankura horse is the piece everyone knows, a standing horse with a long straight neck and upright ears, fired in unglazed red clay. It is made in parts and joined before firing.
The same village makes elephants, lamps and temple tiles. Larger pieces travel badly, so the small ones are the practical buy.
The clay is unglazed, so the colour is the colour of the fired earth. Anything painted or glazed is a different product.
Metal cast by the lost wax method, with the surface left showing the wax threads.
A clay core is wrapped in wax threads, coated in more clay, then heated so the wax runs out and molten brass takes its place. The mould is broken to release the piece, so every casting is a single piece and no two are identical.
It is made in Bankura, Bardhaman and Purulia districts, and in several other states under other names.
Pieces are usually figures, lamps, bowls and jewellery. The surface keeps the thread pattern of the wax, which is why no two castings come out the same.
Two of them, held by two states for two different sweets.
Banglar Rasogolla was registered in November 2017, to a West Bengal state corporation. Odisha Rasagola was granted in July 2019, to an Odisha state corporation and a traders body.
A Geographical Indication records a product made in a defined place to a defined method. It does not decide where a dish was invented, and the registry granted both because the two sweets differ in colour, texture and syrup.
Our six day journey through Kolkata and the coast starts in the city the Bengal version comes from.
Baluchari and Swarnachari sarees from Bishnupur, nakshi kantha quilts, Panchmura terracotta, dokra brass casting, sweets including the registered Banglar Rasogolla, and Malda mangoes in early summer.
Both are Bishnupur silks woven with figure panels in the pallu. Swarnachari uses gold and silver thread, which makes it heavier and more expensive than a standard Baluchari.
Both states hold a Geographical Indication for their own version. Banglar Rasogolla was registered in 2017 and Odisha Rasagola in 2019. The registry recorded two distinct products rather than deciding where the sweet began.
Panchmura village in Bankura district, where it is made, or the state handicraft outlets. Large pieces are fragile in transit, so the small horses and lamps travel better.
No. It is cast in Bankura, Bardhaman and Purulia, and the same lost wax method is worked in several other states under different names. Ask which district a piece comes from.