Mahajati Sadan

Mahajati Sadan, at 166 Chittaranjan Avenue in central Kolkata, is a public hall tied closely to the freedom movement. Today it holds an air-conditioned auditorium of 1,309 seats, a seminar room for 160 people and a library of social science and literature papers, including books from the collection of B C Roy. Its anniversary falls on 19 August.

The idea came from Subhas Chandra Bose after his release from detention in 1937. Supporters set up the Subhas Congress Fund, and Bose planned a building with a large hall, a stage, meeting rooms, a library and a gymnasium. He secured land on lease from the Calcutta Corporation in August 1938, and Rabindranath Tagore laid the foundation and gave it the name Mahajati Sadan, or 'house of the nation'.

Work stalled after Bose disappeared. Bidhan Chandra Roy, as Chief Minister of West Bengal, revived it through the Mahajati Sadan Act of 1949, and the building opened about a decade later. Statues of Bose and Tagore flank the entrance, portraits of freedom fighters line the walls, and the stage once hosted P C Sorcar Junior, Hemanta Mukhopadhyay, Manna Dey and other noted artists.