This article investigates colonial attitudes toward disease in the indigenous parts of Kolkata, focusing on a market area called "Barabazaar." Through the health and planning reports produced by the British authorities, it explores the construction of the "urban history of Kolkata" and the formation of an intertwined "Western" narrative of health and modernity. Concluding, it argues for a hybrid notion of modernity that offers "other" possibilities, one which acknowledges the huge part played by the indigenous population in the urban history of Kolkata.