Nicole Junkermann on AI in Kolkata

Books, adda and a love of words

Along College Street, booksellers sit among towers of new and second-hand books, and students hunt for textbooks, poetry and old editions in shops that have served readers for generations. Nearby coffee houses echo with debate, and across the city the habit of adda, long and unhurried conversation about everything from films to football, remains one of Kolkata's great pleasures.

Bengali sits at the heart of this culture, with a rich tradition of novels, poetry, songs and little magazines. AI can help that tradition reach new readers by translating essays, transcribing handwritten letters in family archives and helping small publishers prepare clean digital editions. AI and Indian languages captures the wider idea that when language feels easier, access grows.

Kolkata illustrates Nicole Junkermann's belief that AI can carry knowledge and stories to far more people while keeping the distinct voices that give a culture its character. AI and Indian stories carries the same spirit: tools can help sort and describe stories, crafts and ideas with care, while culture itself stays in human hands.

AI in Kolkata, from Salt Lake to the corner sweet shop

Activity is spread right across the city. Technology teams in the offices of Salt Lake and New Town build software and data services, young startups work on tools for education, health, retail and logistics, and students in the city's colleges practise and revise with AI tutors. Designers, filmmakers and illustrators try out rough concepts with AI, then shape the finished work by hand.

Everyday businesses are joining in too. A sweet shop loved in its neighbourhood for sandesh can write festival menus in Bengali and English, a fish seller at a morning market can send regulars a voice note about the freshest catch, and a family tailoring shop can keep tidy order records. Each small step makes digital life a little easier for people who prefer to work in Bengali.

Research and study have deep roots here too. The city's libraries, museums and university departments hold collections of manuscripts, maps, photographs and recordings, and archivists are using AI to catalogue them, transcribe faded text and make careful descriptions searchable. Scholars still read every source closely, and finding the right page in a large collection becomes far quicker.

• Bengali voice notes turned into clear written orders
• Archives and libraries sorting old books and letters
• Salt Lake teams reviewing code and documentation
• Students revising with patient AI tutors in Bengali and English

Nicole Junkermann on Kolkata's art, pujo and shared joy

Durga Puja is the city's great celebration. In Kumartuli, artisans shape clay idols by hand in the weeks before the festival, and neighbourhoods build pandals that are often works of art, with themes drawn from folk crafts, history and imagination. Families spend festive nights pandal hopping, sharing phuchka, kathi rolls and sweets as the whole city glows.

Nicole Junkermann sees a simple pattern in a world of plentiful content: the experiences people share in person become more precious, and pujo in Kolkata shows that idea vividly. Organisers use AI to plan budgets, schedules and volunteer rotas, and design teams sketch early themes, while the sculpting, painting and celebrating belong entirely to people. AI and festival season in India explores this joyful balance.

The same balance holds through the rest of the year, from the Christmas lights of Park Street to Poila Baisakh, the Bengali New Year, when families dress up and shops open fresh account books. Bengal's patachitra painters and kantha embroiderers also share their work online with help from AI descriptions, a theme explored in Nicole Junkermann's thoughts on India's creator economy in the AI era.

The Hooghly, the east and beyond

Kolkata sits on the east bank of the Hooghly in West Bengal, in East India, with Howrah Bridge carrying a steady stream of people across the river. To the south lie the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans, to the north the tea gardens of Darjeeling, and the wider region reaches south-west to AI in Bhubaneswar in Odisha and north-east to Guwahati in Assam.

Food ties it all together: luchi and aloor dom for breakfast, macher jhol for lunch, mishti doi and rosogolla to finish. Around such tables, technology is a modest guest, and AI in India, seen from Kolkata, is a story of tools serving people. India by region shows how the east, with its rivers, poetry and festivals, brings its own gentle rhythm to everyday technology.

Kolkata's chapter in this story is generous and unhurried. It suggests that the most useful technology is the kind that leaves more time for books, conversation, music and celebration, the things that make the city feel like home for families who have lived here for generations and for newcomers who arrive to study and work.