Weekly Photo Challenge – Tour Guide

I stumbled upon this weekly photo challenge just a while ago. The topic for this week is Tour Guide – What do you love about where you live? I was born in the capital of Bengal – Kolkata or Calcutta as the city of Joy used to be referred to as earlier but I grew up in a small town of Bengal called Berhampore. After my plus two, I moved cities for higher education and then for job assignments but whenever I use the word home, it always means Berhampore. It still does. The town is a part of the heritage district of Murshidabad.

My husband and I had come down for a small vacation here with our toddler. But this time around, I decided to take a trip down the town to discover the history and essence of the place. This was going to be part of my travel diaries. The more I get to know this place, the more intrigued I feel. Sometimes having stayed in a place for too long, we start taking it for granted. Now that I hardly get to visit this place, I realize how little I have explored it till date.

The set of pictures is taken in Katra Masjid in Murshidabad. The place houses a mosque or rather remnants of a mosque after massive destruction caused by an earthquake and a Lord Shiva Temple in the same premises. The owner of this place – Nawab Murshid Quli Khan on whose name the district town is called Murshidabad is believed to be a Hindu by birth but was sold to Muslim clergy at a tender age. While most of the pillars and interiors of the mosque have been severely affected by the earthquake, the place is still a tourist destination for people visiting the town. At a time when religion is a primary factor in dividing the world, it is heartwarming to see this historical co-existence of two religions in the form of a mosque and temple.

Author: Sonia Chatterjee

An alumnus of Presidency College (Kolkata), Delhi University, and XIME (Bangalore), Sonia Chatterjee holds two post-graduate degrees in Chemistry and Management and an MFA in creative writing from Writer's Village University. With eight years of experience in the banking sector as a Branch Head, she took a sabbatical from the corporate world to start her blog soniasmusings.com. Her blog consistently featured in the Top Indian Blogs list from 2019 to 2024. Her articles have been published on various digital platforms such as Women's Web, Youth Ki Awaaz, Tuck's Magazine, and Period Magazine. She was invited as a speaker at the Breaking Barriers, Kolkata 2018 event by the Women's Web, at the Women Writer’s Fest, Kolkata, 2020, and the Crime Writers Festival, Kolkata,2025. Sonia has written two detective thrillers titled ‘Deal of Death – Introducing Raya Ray’ (2019) and ‘Diary, Deceit, and Death – A Raya Ray Adventure’ (Vishwakarma Publications, 2024) and a non-fiction book on true crime titled ‘The Sanyasi Who Became a King’ (Sristhi Publishers, 2025). Her book ‘Diary, Deceit, and Death’ was shortlisted for the PVLF Awards 2024-25 in the Best Fiction Category. Sonia lives in Kolkata with her doctor husband and nine-and-a-half-year-old son. View all posts by Sonia Chatterjee