If you are a pet lover and it is Sunday morning, just go to
Shyambazar area in north Kolkata through the BT Road at Galiff Street. Here a unique pet market is held every Sunday
morning. Initially this market was developed near the Hatibagan, a well known
place in North Kolkata. Due to the huge popularity, and space constraint this
market was shifted to Galiff Street. The market start very early in the morning
at about 4:30 AM! The pet business owners from whole West Bengal and
surrounding states reach early to collect their stocks at about 8 am, huge rush
of hobbyists can be seen. Even hobbyists sell their stocks directly. You can
find different rare species of bird, rabbit, guinea pig, dog, pigeon, different
kind of colorful fishes for aquarium, plants and
flowers.
But everything is not good about this market. Under the
Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, indigenous birds like parrots are banned from
sale, including few other species of bird. But here they can sell these
kinds of illegal species without any problem. Even few years back some animal rights activists protested against this market.
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| Two pet lovers examining colorful fish at kolkata pet market |
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| A man selling rare birds at kolkata pet market |
This is the oldest pet market of west bengal and one of the oldest in India. You will find different pet shops in different parts of the city scattered around, but as a collection of everything it is really a unique one for all the pet and plant lovers.
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| A man selling fish at kolkata pet market |
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| Cages are being made to keep the birds |
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| A boy helping his mother at kolkata pet market |
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| A little boy selling domestic birds at kolkata pet market |
In spite of lot of limitations the Galiff Street pet market is continuing a history. This market used to happen in Hatibagan area in British era. So you can easily imagine the historical status of this old market. I talked with few buyers and most of them are not aware the history behind the market except few sellers, but they are very happy that at least they have something as one stop destination in this city where they can get everything to provide their "Pet-o-Mind".
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