1963, from Time machine
The British conquerors superimposed their way of life onto that of their subjects. The most spectacular result of this is Calcutta, for long the capital of the Indian Empire and the port of entry to the subcontinent. The Maidan was modeled on Hyde Park, the Fort on the Tower, Chowringhee (the main street) on the Mall. The great residences were decorated with colonnaded facades in the style of Belgravia, and the squares embellished with effigies of Wellington and Queen Victoria. The bridge on the Hooghly is a masterpiece of British steel engineering and public transport is provided by red double-decker buses made by the same factories as those in London. At the beginning, this London-on-Hooghly was reserved for Crown servants, merchants linked to the City and a minority of anglicized natives. The Indians accepted this apartheid: in their eyes, the British were just another ruling caste that had taken the place of more ancient ones, just as other conquerors had done before. With independence and the wave of refugees from East Bengal (which had become part of Pakistan), the Indian masses engulfed the city: brick, marble and plaster were impregnated with their sweat, their urine and the red spit from betel chewing, which is easily mistaken for blood. The homeless found refuge on the main staircases of the buildings and covered them with their refuse. Some streets had to be closed to traffic and were transformed into rubbish dumps as high as small hills, on the slopes of which children in rags scavenge for leftovers. As if humanity was a disease of the city.
1962, Calcutta, India, street scene at night