Bardhaman
— a sweet town that the trains pass through.
Not only on a wall.
“A district capital in West Bengal, on the line that runs from Howrah toward the coal country. Old Maharaja's domes and the white arch of Curzon Gate still mark the centre. The town is known for two sweets, sitabhog like grains of perfumed rice and mihidana like wet gold, both made here long before they were given a protected name.
Bardhaman, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Bardhaman, also written Burdwan, is the headquarters of Purba Bardhaman district in West Bengal, India, lying about one hundred kilometres northwest of Kolkata along the Damodar River. The city anchors a fertile rice-growing plain and sits on the main railway line between Howrah and the Asansol coalfield. Its built core grew under the Maharajas of Burdwan, a Bengali zamindar dynasty whose rule extended from the seventeenth century to Indian independence. Today the population sits near three hundred and fifteen thousand, and the city remains an administrative, educational, and agricultural centre for the region.
The Burdwan Raj shaped this city for nearly three hundred years. Maharaja Mahtab Chand commissioned the Sarvamangala Temple in its present form around 1702, and the dynasty's later builders left the 108 Shiva Temples at Nababhat, arranged in two concentric rows above the Banka River. The white Curzon Gate, properly the Bijoy Toran, was raised in 1903 to mark the Viceroy's visit. The royal family's seat finally devolved at independence, but the temples and the gate still organise the old town.
The main monuments cluster within walking distance of Bardhaman Junction railway station, one of the busiest on the Howrah-Delhi main line. Curzon Gate stands at the western end of the central avenue; the 108 Shiva Temples at Nababhat sit two kilometres north along the river. Sarvamangala Temple draws steady worshippers, with heaviest crowds at Durga Puja each autumn. Sweet shops behind the station, Bhairab Mistanna Bhandar among the oldest, supply the GI-protected sitabhog and mihidana that the town's name carries beyond Bengal.