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The Ras Chakra during Ras Mela in Madan Mohan Bari
Every year during the Ras Purnima, the city hosts Ras Mela, one of the largest and oldest fairs in West Bengal. The fair is older than 200 years. Cooch Behar Municipality organises the fair in Ras Mela ground near ABN Seal College. During the fair, it becomes a central economic hub of the North Bengal region. Merchants and sellers from all over India and also from Bangladesh join this fair. Earlier, the Maharajas of Cooch Behar used to inaugurate the fair by moving the Ras Chakra, and now the work is executed by the District Magistrate of Cooch Behar District. The Ras Chakra is considered a symbol of communal harmony because an artisanal Muslim family builds it from scratch. A huge crowd gathers in Cooch Behar from neighbouring Assam, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, and the whole North Bengal during the fair.
Novelist Amiya Bhushan Majumdar was born, raised, and worked in Cooch Behar. Cooch Behar, with its people, culture, and the river Torsha has been a recurrent theme in his novels.
Apart from this, Cooch Behar has a rich history of Debate, Extempore, and Quizzing.
Tourism[edit]
Cooch Behar is a significant tourist destination in West Bengal. The main attractions are:
Cooch Behar Palace[edit]
Cooch Behar Palace
It is the main attraction of the city, having been modelled after Buckingham Palace in London and built in 1887 during the reign of Maharaja Nripendra Narayan. It is a brick-built double-story structure in the classical Western style covering 51,309 square feet (4,766.8 square metres). The whole structure stands 395 feet (120 m) long, 296 feet (90 m) wide and rests 4 feet 9 inches (1.45 m) above ground. The Palace is fronted on the ground and first floors by a series of arcaded verandahs with their piers arranged alternately in single and double rows.
The Palace projects slightly at the southern and northern ends, and in the center is a projected porch providing an entrance to the Durbar Hall. The Hall has an elegantly shaped metal dome topped by a cylindrical louvre-type ventilator. This is 124 feet (38 m) high from the ground and is in the style of Renaissance architecture. The intros of the dome are carved in stepped patterns, and Corinthian columns support the base of the cupola. This adds variegated colours and designs to the entire surface.
There are various halls in the palace and rooms, including the Dressing Room, Bed Room, Drawing Room, Dining Hall, Billiard hall, Library, Toshakhana, Lady's Gallery, and Vestibules. The articles and precious objects that these rooms and halls used to contain are now lost. The original palace was three storied but was destroyed by a 19th-century earthquake measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale. The palace shows the acceptance of the European idealism of the Koch kings and the fact that they had embraced European culture without denouncing their Indian heritage.
Sagar Dighi[edit]
A view of Sagar Dighi
Sagardighi is one of the "Great Ponds" in the heart of Cooch Behar, West Bengal. The name means an ocean-like pond, exaggerated given its great significance. As well as being popular with people, it attracts migratory birds each winter. It is surrounded by many important administrative buildings, like the District Magistrates Office, the Administrative Building of North Bengal State Transport Corporation, BSNL's DTO Office in the West; the Office of the Superintendent of Police, the District Library, the Municipality Building in the South, the Office of BLRO, the State Bank of India's Cooch Behar Main Branch and many others in the East, the RTO office, the Foreigner's registration office, the District Court in the North and others. Most of these buildings are remnants of royal heritage.
