One of the oldest neighbourhoods in South Kolkata, Kalighat is also densely populated — with a history of cultural intermingling with the various foreign incursions into the area over time.

It was Padmabati Devi, the mother of Laksmikanta Roy Choudhury who discovered the fossils of Sati's finger in a lake called Kalikunda.

[1] The East India Company obtained from the Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar, in 1717, the right to rent from 38 villages surrounding their settlement.

Some time in 1783, a fisherman found a treasure hoard of more than 200 Gold Coins somewhere near the now defunct Strand on the Adi Ganga, near Kalighat.

However, for all practical purposes, the hoard was thought to be lost, as the Company directors sent most of the coins to the melting pot, and some to a few collectors.

He thought he had made a magnificent contribution to the Court of Directors — a hoard of Persian Darics (since no one knew of the Guptas back then).

Many of these nouveau riche families came from not particular exalted caste backgrounds, so the orthodox tended to frown on them and their often very tasteless conspicuous consumption.

Thus the 'babu culture' portrayed in the Kalighat patas often shows inversions of the social order (wives beating husbands or leading them about in the guise of pet goats or dogs, maidservants wearing shoes, sahibs in undignified postures, domestic contretemps, and the like.)

The art form is urban and largely secular: although gods and goddesses are often depicted, they appear in much the same de-romanticised way as the humans do.

Amitav Ghosh's The Calcutta Chromosome is partly set in Kalighat and gives a wonderfully atmospheric depiction of the region as well as the city itself.

Kalighat also plays a prominent role in Song of Kali by Dan Simmons and in the short story "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves" by Poppy Z. Brite.

In Chapter 6 of Neil Gaiman's 2001 contemporary fantasy American Gods, Kalighat is directly referenced by the eponymous deity: “So I am a child, am I?” She wagged a finger at him.

Then I am a child, for there is nothing in your foolish talk to see.” Again, a moment of double-vision: Shadow saw the old woman, her dark face pinched with age and disapproval, but behind her he saw something huge, a naked woman with skin as black as a new leather jacket, and lips and tongue the bright red of arterial blood.

[5] Located around the banks of the Adi Ganga canal, an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 prostitutes live and work in the red-light district.