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Kolkata WordPress Community is super excited to share its Official Logo with the world!

The community is privileged to have Mr. Suman Sil in our community who had beautifully blended the heritage of The City Of Joy with our own WordPress in the logo!!

Hand-pulled rickshaw, Victoria Memorial, Howrah Bridge, Shahid Minar – they all tell you the age-old history of Kolkata and submerge you into the depth of nostalgia!

Okay, here are some interesting stuff about our most favourite and popular person of the whole WordPress Kolkata Community and without keeping the secret for more I must mention his name presenting “WAPPU DA”- The official mascot for WordCamp Kolkata 2020.

WAPPU DA is a WordPress wizard and loves talking and discussing new happenings in WordPress and the open-source world. He is excitedly waiting for all the speakers for WordCamp Kolkata to hear them and have a good time with some really good clicks making memories and wishing all other communities a good time!

Like the last year, WAPPU DA has reached early to welcome you all in The City Of Joy for one more time! Kolkata is known for its age-old heritage and culture and people from all over the world come here to experience that nostalgia. WAPPU DA knows it very well! And he will be welcoming you wearing Bengal’s very own traditional Dhoti and Babu-Panjabi.

Kolkata WordPress Community is one of the most interactive and active communities of the country. Although the presence of this community was there before, it started to speed up from the year 2017. At that point, this community was not an official chapter of WordPress.

Before July 2017, only one meetup happened back in Dec. 24, 2016 by the community. But a group of WordPress enthusiasts thought in a different way and regular meetups started to happen from the middle of 2017.

One of our community members, Arun Singh announced a meetup for July 15, 2017. Our venue was City Center 2! It was long back, but I can still remember every bit of it! We were only four persons present in that meetup. During that time, we used to meet every Saturday! In the beginning, we had no specific venue for the meeting. We used to organize our meetups in various places like Shopping malls, Coffee shops, and Parks.

Slowly but steadily we started to gain into strength. When I joined this community there were about 200 members. Today the community is running with 1300+ members. Since July 15, 2017, the community has conducted meetups almost every month and to date, we have a long story of conducting 30 meetups.

The belief in the community was so strong that by mid of 2018, we applied for official status and eventually got it! It was party time for Kolkata WordPress Community.

After the community got its official seal, the next step was to go for the first-ever WordCamp in the city and a long due one for Eastern India.

None of us had any experience of organizing such a big event of any kind. But Josh was too high and we showed the courage of applying for it. Trust me, it was something we will never forget. I still remember the moment when our mentor Aditya Kane told us that the first WordCamp in Kolkata has been approved! The feeling that time was out of the earth!

There were some areas we did some mistakes and was a bit worried too. But this is the magic of WordPress! Everybody told us that we did a great job.

One of the colonial treasures that you can still see plying in our city rather than decked up in museums are these hand-pulled rickshaws. In our local language, these vehicles are called “Tonga”. These rickshaws were introduced in Kolkata in the 19th century after they were invented in Japan, and still to date they are operational in our city. Kolkata is the only remaining city in India to keep up with hand-pulled rickshaws. These rickshaws have been an integral part of our city. They have witnessed Kolkata’s evolution for over a century.

These hand-pulled rickshaws can be seen in between some confined areas of north and central Kolkata. In contrast to City’s fast emerging infrastructure, these rickshaws provide a glimpse into the past. The best part of the rickshaws, that they can take you through narrow lanes of north and central Kolkata which are inaccessible by autos and cabs. These rickshaws are part of the unique identity of Kolkata along with tea, tram, and cricket. Like the Howrah Bridge and Victoria Memorial, these rickshaws an image of Kolkata to tourists.

These rickshaws are light-weight and have a sturdy wooden frame. At a time these rickshaws can accommodate one or two persons. They generally carry goods, pick and drop children, carry passengers through narrow water-logged alleys during monsoon seasons. Ideally, their day starts from dawn and lasts still very late in the evening. Unlike our modern battery-powered rickshaws these two-wheeler rickshaw is pulled by a person with a bell hooked around his finger, which he shooks continuously. The sound of the slow clatter of the rotating wooden wheels drawn by a man is quite distinctive from the sounds of other vehicles plying on the road.

 These iconic hand-pulled rickshaws have been mentioned in many literary works. For instance, Bimal Roy “Do Bigha Zamin in 1953 (an adaptation of Tagore’s poem of the same name)” where a farmer becomes a rickshaw puller in then Calcutta. Dilip Banerjee’s “On His Last Leg” is a documentary on the plights of hand-pulled rickshawallas of Kolkata. In Rudyard Kipling’s play “The Phantom rickshaw” the main lead was a rickshaw puller. For photographers, Kolkata is incomplete without these rickshaws. For street photographers and explorers this vehicle tickles their fancy.

 Since the colonial period, these rickshaws have provided livelihood to poor people in our city. They continue to do so. Though very soon they will be replaced by battery-powered rickshaws in the near future, as the Government is setting up rehabilitation programs for these rickshaw-pullers. So in a few years, you might see a hand-pulled rickshaw in a museum.

Hello everyone…

We know, you are really very excited to visit WordCamp Kolkata 2020 scheduled on 22nd March. The venue for WordCamp Kolkata 2020 is Biswa Bangla Convention Centre, Kolkata.

Biswa Bangla Convention Centre is one of the largest convention centres in South Asia located 7 kilometres away from Kolkata Airport (CCU).

Wondering how to reach the Venue?

To reach us, you can follow any of the following modes of transport :

Via Flight
– You may take a flight to Kolkata Airport. Avail AC buses or cab from Kolkata airport and drop to New Town Narkelbagan Stoppage to reach the Convention Centre.

Via Train
– You can find a train to Howrah Station from almost everywhere in India. Howrah Station is one of the busiest stations, so it’s not hard to find.
– From Howrah Station, you can avail AC12 bus and drop to Rabindra Tirtha Stoppage. The venue is at 7 minutes walking distance away from the bus stoppage.

You can also avail taxis, Ola or Uber from any location surrounding Kolkata to reach the gates of the Convention Centre.

Still, Can’t find a decent travelling option?

Let us know and we will help you in finding one.