I hail from Kolkata a city which lies in eastern India. It is the capital of Bengal, a province of India. Kokata was earlier known as Calcutta--a name given by the colonial British rulers. During the early British rule the city was the capital of British India. Bengalis are known as lovers of literature and culture. That is why all over India, Kolkata is known as the country's cultural capital. The present chief minister of Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya is also very fond of art and culture. Here in Kolkata we have a complex known as Nandan-Bangla Akademi campus where every evening poets and writers assemble for a creative gossip. Actually bengalis are also very fond of gossip, which is called adda in Bengali. There is another place Coffee House in College Street which is also a traditionally popular place of adda. This college street is considered to be a heritage area where there are many institutions associated with the great social reformers and educationists of the nineteenth centure bengali rennaissance. I return to what I was saying about Bangla Akademi which is a recent creation for the development of Bengali language and literature. Besides other things, there are two auditoriums in the Bangla Akademi building which remains very busy. Every day in the evening there are some programmes--mostly poetry-reading and literary seminars or book releases. From Bengal a vast number of little magazines are published. There are more poets than novelists or essayists in this land. People think bengalis are natural poets. I, of course, do not write poetry. I consider myself as a thinker. So I write essays in bengali. This is my welcome article. In my future articles I will write in details about Bengali literary scene and also about my interests.