Howrah Bridge is blending India's modern present with its spiritual past

It is not only a bridge across space but also through time, connecting India's modern present with its spiritual past

In a letter to his friend and fellow poet, Gary Snyder, American beat poet Allen Ginsberg wrote: “Under the great Howrah bridge, an eternity style bridge with all Calcutta passing over it in bullock cart auto tram bus bicycle or dragging leprous foot— A sustained wild roar that rises and falls like music… Om—”

There is no date on the letter, included in Ginsberg’s Indian Journals (1971), but one can guess it must be October 1962, when he was in Calcutta (Kolkata), along with his companion Peter Orlovsky. To him, the cantilever structure, spanning across the yawning, brown muddy Hooghly,