Her family Kalipuja at the Chowdhury zamindar bari (house) is something to remember for our member, Ms D. Dutta
Shingti Shibpur, a small town in Howrah district, was a land of many ...
Her family Kalipuja at the Chowdhury zamindar bari (house) is something to remember for our member, Ms D. Dutta
Shingti Shibpur, a small town in Howrah district, was a land of many zamindars (landed gentry) in Bengal during the British era. Born in the Chowdhury family, our member, Ms D. Dutta, had a luxurious and happy childhood in the joint family of the zamindar, with her 21 cousins and siblings. The children never understood the difference between cousins and siblings. There was one maid who looked after the children; the dal (lentil) and rice would be mixed on a big thali and the mashed potato kept on the side, as all the children were fed one by one. “After the first child had its share, the next would sit with the mouth wide open. I remember the fun of such shared meals. The milkman would comment that the children would all be fair as they had boiled potato and milk every day!!”
It is the memory of the Kalipujo, celebrated with traditional pomp every year, over the generations, which make for her most cherished memory. It was an open house and people from nearby villages poured in for the bhog (devotional offering of food, shared with the worshippers) at the zamindar bari. In the days of yore, 150 buffalos would be sacrificed in front of Ma Kali but the practice was abandoned following an accident. Sacrificial lambs were brought in thereafter. Over the years, the number has decreased to 25 but the sacrifice continues.
Only special priests could perform the puja; the “Agambagish”, who travelled from Khanpur to Shingti Shibpur to perform the puja for the zamindar family every year. The ritual was to place the Noibeddo (oblation) on the tongue of the enormous idol. The puja was just for a day but the elaborate arrangements to prepare the bhog and the meat cooked especially by the “thakur” (brahmin cooks) are still afresh in her mind.
The idol was so big that the pre-immersion ritual of ladies applying vermillion on the forehead of the deity was possible only with the ladies climbing a ladder to reach the forehead. Then the entire village would join the procession for the immersion.
“Today, after a long time, I had boiled and mashed potato and rice and milk, in spite of being diabetic. I told my help maid about the meals that I had with my siblings and cousins in our childhood!” (As told to Support Elders by our member)
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Ms S. Mukherjee, our member, grew up in Uttarpara and fondly recalls her encounters with the girls from the local zamindar family today, in a world when the 'zamindari' palaces are giving way to high rises.
Uttarpara, ...
Ms S. Mukherjee, our member, grew up in Uttarpara and fondly recalls her encounters with the girls from the local zamindar family today, in a world when the 'zamindari' palaces are giving way to high rises.
Uttarpara, some 20 kilometres from Kolkata, was once the land of zamindars, with many palatial houses in a typically rural Bengal setting. That was where our member, Ms S. Mukherjee, grew up, between Sheoraphuly and Uttarpara. Over the years she has witnessed the changing landscape with modern high-rises towering over the landscape today.
Ms Mukherjee looks back nostalgically at the enormous tract of land on which stood the “Zamindar Bari” of the Mukherjees by the river Hooghly with its sprawling garden and a huge portico in front of the palatial structure. “It was not possible to espy any family member from the road in front of the edifice”.
In right royal monarchic style, the zamindars controlled the peasantry, collecting taxes on behalf of imperial courts of the mughals, becoming even more powerful during the colonial era. Under the British, they shed their image as landed aristocracy and took on such titles as raja and maharaja, as conferred on them by the Raj.
Mukherjee Bari was special though. Jaykrishna Mukherjee, the zamindar, was an ardent social reformer, playing a major role in developing institutions of excellence in Uttarpara and improving civil amenities. He focused on road constructions and founded an amazing library in 1854, now known as Uttarpara Jaykrishna Public Library. This institution made a great contribution to enhancing access to knowledge in the region.
It was opened to the public on April 15, 1859 as the first free reading centre for the people; the first of its kind in Asia and renamed after Babu Jaykrishna, as he was popularly known. Famous people like Michael Madhusudan Dutt and Ishwar Chandra Vidhyasagar were amongst those visiting the library that had a collection of rare books.
Ms Mukherjee first studied at the Uttarpara Balika Vidyalaya, which was established by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar upon being requested by the Mukherjees, the only school at that time and later to the Uttarpara Girl's High School, where she had two girls from the zamindar's family girls as classmates. “They came in the family phaeton (a light four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage) but were perfectly down-to-earth and behaved like all other girls”. The only difference was they were never allowed to go out alone, even to school. They were close friends with whom she lost touch some time after they got married.
After the abolition of the zamindari system, post-Independence, these families broke up, their members scattering over different places, their source of living changing as did their lifestyles. Mukherjee Bari was sold and is to be redeveloped. All that remains are her memories.
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Our member, Ms B. Dasgupta, was born and brought up in Shillong, a quaint hill town that was the capital for composite Assam during the Raj. From the abode of clouds and the land of rolling hills she came ...
Our member, Ms B. Dasgupta, was born and brought up in Shillong, a quaint hill town that was the capital for composite Assam during the Raj. From the abode of clouds and the land of rolling hills she came to Calcutta after school, for higher education.
The picturesque landscape, fascinating pine trees, waterfalls and greenery around and a climate that suited even the British made for a charming city to grow up in for Ms Dasgupta, now 87. Thanks to the British influence, Shillong had a very ‘westernised’ culture and even girls cycled to school and spoke excellent English though her patents were very particular that she learnt Bengali just as well. “Under the strict supervision of my father I started learning Bengali, after completing my Senior Cambridge examination, I began to learn Bengali at home, tutored by a lady who started by making me write Pakhi shob korey rob, (the birds are chirping aloud), a poem for beginners”. She picked up fast and soon started reading Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.
She also had her eyes set on doing geography at Calcutta’s Presidency College. There being no girl’s hostel in Presidency, her father managed to convince the Lady Brabourne administration to allow her to stay at the Brabourne’s hostel and study geography at Presidency. She could not study in Brabourne because geography was in the arts stream where Bengali was compulsory and she was afraid that her Bengali was not up to Bengal’s exacting standards. Presidency allowed her to study geography with science subjects.
The next obstacle was to convince the hostel administration, which insisted that girls going out be escorted by the hostel security, that she could be trusted to take the tram to Presidency and back. Trams were not crowded and buses had wonderful Punjabi drivers who were very helpful, especially to ladies.
She also had to adjust to the mindsets of her hostel mates that differed from hers: “I took it as a challenge and still believe that every individual must stay in hostel at least for few years just to be adaptable under all circumstances.” Today, she believes that her hostel stay gave her the resilience to deal with all circumstances that life would present. She did extremely well in college, with a 1st class first in geography honours from Calcutta University in 1953. However, she gave up studies after marriage and became a homemaker so that she could look after her family. That was the trend in those days, something unheard of now!
Over the years, Calcutta has become Kolkata and gone through a massive transformation. She finds nothing the same today; nothing that matches her college day memories.
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School excursions are fun and make for great memories. Not this, one for our member, Ms S. Roy, who had taken a group of 500 students from her school, in four buses, for an excursion to Jayrambati and Kamarpukur. “We ...
School excursions are fun and make for great memories. Not this, one for our member, Ms S. Roy, who had taken a group of 500 students from her school, in four buses, for an excursion to Jayrambati and Kamarpukur. “We took children to different places for excursions or picnics, leaving at an appointed hour and bringing them back to school at a scheduled time, to be picked up by their parents. It would be a lot of fun and learning as well.”
DThis time too, the entire day was a great experience but when they were heading back, the sky was overshadowed with darkness. The ominous rain-bearing clouds lived up to their threat along with gusty winds. They made for zero visibility, forcing the buses to stop by the wayside as the merciless rain battered them. Her only thought was about the safety of her children. There were no cellphones and there was no way that she could contact their parents.
Then came the added horror. There was a banging on the bus. Outside, there were some locals screaming for them to open the buses. “Let us in”, they screamed. “You are sitting comfortably inside the vehicle and we are getting wet!” They sat quietly inside but the hammering went on for half an hour. Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, she asked the driver of her bus to move, never mind the consequences. The other buses got the message and they literally fled the spot despite the lack of visibility. They made it back to the school at around 11 pm and found anxious parents waiting for them. The students went home, thanking the teachers but one parent did not show up. The night turned to the next day before the last parent came at 12.30. Now it was for her to worry about how to get home. The kindly security guard offered to reach her home. It was around 1 am!
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The Dikom Tea Estate, one of the oldest estates in Dibrugarh, Assam, was home for our member, Ms S. Laha, several years back. She was a Delhi girl but had travelled all over India with her father, ...
The Dikom Tea Estate, one of the oldest estates in Dibrugarh, Assam, was home for our member, Ms S. Laha, several years back. She was a Delhi girl but had travelled all over India with her father, who had a transferable job. These included Shantiniketan, where she studied and Puducherry too. The two ashrams had a defining influence on her life. Marriage to a planter took her to the tea estate and it meant considerable adjustment, getting used to life in the Dikom. The area finds mention in Assam's medieval era history, where local rulers of the Bodo-Kacharis discovered that the water of Sessa River flowing by was sweet and tasty. They named the place Dikom (Di or Doi means water). No wonder, every cup of Dikom tea has a sweet after-taste that is unique to this estate. Life here was an idyll compared to the madding crowd of urban India as Ms Laha settled down with her husband in their sprawling bungalow with its enormous compound. Dikom's undulating terrain, covered with lush green tea plantation, was the only view for miles.
The managers had a pampered life, with a retinue of well-trained help and a supply of fresh green vegetables. For recreation there was the Estate Club with its swimming pools, tennis court and everything that one could possibly want. While this was luxurious living, there was a regimen around their lives and planters were rather orthodox and disciplined in their ways.
Dikom was under British management in those days but it gradually changed hands to become an Indian-owned estate. The bonhomie continued though with parties, movies, get togethers, all sorts of entertainments and festive celebrations at the club. Everyone knew everyone else, which was totally different from the anonymity of city life. “The rolling plains of Assam with mist-shrouded hills, life on the tea gardens seemed completely different from the normal civilian lifestyle,” Ms Laha reminisces. Then there was the fascinating Bihu festival, which was celebrated in the club and at homes as well. This was the occasion when the locals visited the estate bungalows to dance to the lilting Bihu tunes, dressed in their festive finery. Tribal culture mingled with modern Assam with Bihu being celebrated throughout the state. The experience made for memories of a lifetime.
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