kolkata located between bidhan sarani in the west and apc road to the east sahitya parishad street could well lay claim to be the cultural capital of the city for debesh mukherjee this para has been the inspiration behind one of the oldest music circles in the other end of the city bhawanipur sangeet sammilanithe greats of indian classical music from bade ghulam ali ali akbar vilayat khan ravi shankar vg jog to rashid khan tejendranarayan mazumdar veena sahashrabudhhe have all performed in the sammilanis soirees for over a centuryi attribute this musical journey to my para from a young age we were exposed to art and culture here and for us the true meaning of life means being involved in our cultural heritage mukherjee saidthe locality was earlier known as hooghly galli this was because the locality used to be a muslim dominated one it used to supply milk to whole of north calcutta in 1950 the name was changed to sahitya parishad street after the library was started he recalledthe charm of the para feels mukherjee lies in its unique character just look around you have so many great institutions nearby the bethune college and scottish church college theatre halls like star biswarupa and rangmahal cinema halls music circles libraries and even girish chandra and nakur nandis sweet shops all of them are integral parts of bengali culture he saidand of course there is the sahitya parishad library from which the street gets its name mukherjee goes on to add that there is also chachas hotel near at hand where the likes of mujtaba ali and shibram chakraborty would gatherscientist satyen bose also lived in this parain the evening he would come out for a stroll and have fun with youngsters like us he was an extremely fun loving person he was also a musiclover said mukherjeemonilal nag or dinanath mishra would just drop by and a concert would start just like that in my house mukherjee recalled and he feels the best thing about his para is that it has not changed muchthough the theatres have declined and new buildings are coming up the old flavour of the para still remains he said