Ghats of Kolkata… Revisited: Rai Bahadur Bissessur Lall Hurgobind Shradh Ghat

Rai Bahadur Bissessur Lall Hurgobind Shradh Ghat

At the Kolkata end of the Howrah Bridge, as one gets off on the right, or southern side of the bridge and you can descend into the heart of Mullick Ghat Flower Market. Passing through the maze that is the market, as one tries and get closer to the river, the first ghat to stumble upon, right next to the bridge, is the Rai Bahadur Bissessur Lall Hurgobind Sradh Ghat.

All that is known about the gentleman after whom the ghat is named is that he was a rich Marwari businessman, and his “sradh” ceremony was conducted on that spot. The ghat that was erected in 1916 was probably meant as a sort of marker and memorial. In front of the Ghat one will found a raised area with parallel bars. This spot was in use as a wrestling ring by local “pehelwans”. Nearby are also five banyan trees, each containing a small shrine at its base.

A narrow and slippery path leads down to the river from the Bissessur Lall Hurgobind Sradh Ghat. Taking this path, keep going south, further away from the Howrah Bridge, looming in the background and you arrive at the Ram Chandra Goenka Zenana Bathing Ghat.

Ghats of Kolkata… Revisited: Chhotey Lal Ki Ghat

Chhotey Lal Ki Ghat: Circa 1900s

Amongst all the Ghats of Kolkata that we get to see today, most were built as an act of philanthropy. While some were constructed in memory of departed souls a few for the utmost unexpected reasons. Chhotey Lal Ki Ghat — located a few hundred yards to the south of Howrah Bridge, or, Rabindra Setu — tells one such fascinating tale.

            Chhotey Lal Durga Prasad was a fairly successful practitioner of law at the Calcutta High Court. His wealth and fame swelled up over time. However, despite possessing all the material good things in life he had one regret — absence of a son, who would inherit his riches along with the law firm.

            Legend has that Chhotey Lal Durga Prasad would often come to visit a small temple of Lord Shiva where the Ghat stands today. It was here that one day he met a faqir, or, a Muslim ascetic. Out of his desperate state of mind Prasad approached the ascetic and told him about his unrequited wish.

            The faqir, on hearing Chhotey Lal Durga Prasad’s longing told him to build a ghat at the place and offer his prayers to Lord Shiva. What followed cannot be explained by any letters of science but remain true — Chhotey Lal’s wife a few months after that chance meeting gave birth to a son.

            As part of his promise Chhotey Lal did built the Ghat along with refurbishing the temple. A Hindu by faith, Chhotey Lal did not forget the Muslim ascetic whose words changed his life.

            The Ghat is a unique example of marriage of Islamic and Hindu architecture — definitely a sterling case the ‘unity in diversity’ that India personifies — in every sense. This ghat with all its beauty and splendour is what we know as the Chhotey Lal Ki Ghat. In recent times, several prominent scenes of the Hindi mainstream film ‘Gunday’ were shot at the steps and on the structure of Chhotey Lal Ki Ghat.

Chhotey Lal Ki Ghat: Today

 

Ghats of Kolkata… Revisited: Mutty Lall Seal Ghat

Left: Baboo Mutty Lall Seal; Right: Mutty Lall Seal Ghat… circa 1880

To the south of the Armenian Ghat one will stumble upon the Mutty Lall Seal Ghat. It was originally located more to the north, however, the East India Company forcibly shifted the Ghat to its present location. Mutty Seal’s eldest son Heera Lall fought a long drawn legal battle and obtained significant compensation from the Port Commissioner courtesy of the Company’s decision.

Mutty Lall Seal was born in a Bengali Hindu family in Kolkata around 1792. His father, Chaitanya Charan Seal who was a cloth merchant died when Mutty Lall was around five years old. His early education started at the ‘pathshala’, thereafter he went to Martin Bowl’s English School and finally passed out from Baboo Nityananda Sen’s High School.

However his life took a turn, when in 1809, at the age of seventeen he was married to Nagri Dassee, the daughter of Mohan Chand Dey of Surtir Bagan. Mutty Lall Seal accompanied his father-in-law on a pilgrimage to northern and western parts of India, and the experience greatly enlightened him. Around 1815 he started working in Fort William, then the bastion of British power. It is said that while working at Fort William he was involved in supply of essential commodities for the British Army. Later he also worked as an inspector of Indian Customs at Balikhal.

Mutty Lall commenced his business career humbly by selling bottles and corks to a certain Mr Hudson who was one of the most extensive importers of beer in those days. He traded in cowhides, was the founder and promoter of the first indigo mart that was established under the name of Messer’s Moore, Hickey & Company. The English merchants used to hire him for his sound judgements on indigo, silk, sugar, rice, saltpetre etc

He got appointed as “Baniyan” to around twenty first-class agency houses out of around fifty or sixty such houses in Calcutta. Later he also became a landed property speculator as well as merchant successively in partnership with Fergusson Brothers & Company, Oswald Seal & Company and Tulloh & Company and in these three firms he was said to have lost some thirty lakh of rupees. He got into exporting of indigo, silk, sugar, rice, saltpetre to Europe and importing of iron and cotton-piece goods from England. Mutty Lall got up a number of cargo boats that were then a new speculation in the market. He worked the old Flour Mills, and shipped whole cargoes of biscuits to Australia for the first emigrants to its newly discovered gold fields. Later he put up a mill to refine sugar on the centrifugal principle.

Seal was the first to use steamships for internal trade in Kolkata, and he prospered in competition with Europeans. In due course he amassed around thirteen trade ships including a steam tug named ‘Banian’. He made a vast fortune in a single generation through money dealing, a phrase that does not merely refer to money lending, bill discounting and other banking business. There was scarcely a speculation into which he did not enter, and for which he did not supply a portion of funds.

From dealings in internal exchanges to contracts for station building, for the erection of new bazaars to revival of transit companies, there was scarcely an undertaking in which he was not an important a stakeholder. Mutty Seal funded every promising enterprise he found and made profits in the shape of interest. At one point of time he was in complete control over the market dealing in Company’s papers.

Mutty Lall Seal was one of the founders of Assam Company Limited. Under his influence, the then Oriental Life Insurance Company (later reconstructed as New Oriental Insurance Company in 1834) founded by the Europeans, being the first life insurance company on Indian soil, accepted to underwrite Indian lives. He was among the founders of Bank of India apart from being on the board of Agricultural And Horticultural Society of India.

In the course of time he amassed as much wealth as Dwarkanath Tagore and Rustomjee Cowasjee. In 1878 Kissori Chand Mitra delivered a lecture on the life of Mutty Lall Seal calling him the “Rothschild of Calcutta”.

Seal perhaps is best remembered as the donor of an extensive tract of land, then valued at INR 12,000 to the then British Government on which the Calcutta Medical College was built. The then Government of Bengal recognised his liberality by naming a Ward in his honour, The Mutty Lall Seal Ward, for native male patients. Mutty Lall Seal subsequently supplemented this gift by a donation of a lakh of rupees for the establishment of a female (lying in) hospital that started functioning in 1838 under his munificence.

On Wednesday, March 1, 1842, a gathering of respectable people took place at Seal’s house for the formal opening of the Mutty Lall Seal’s Free College. Among those present were Sir Lawrence Peel, the Chief Justice; Sir John Peter Grant; Mr Lyall, the Advocate-General; Mr Leith and the other principal members of the Calcutta Bar; Captain Birch, Superintendent of the Police; Mr George Thompson, Right Reverend Dr Carew; Baboo Dwarkanath Tagore; Baboo Ramcomul Sen; Baboo Russomoy Dutt and Reverend Krishna Mohan Banerjee.

The Catholic Bishop and all the clergy of the Catholic Cathedral, as well as all the Professors of St Xavier’s College, were likewise present. Nearly the whole of the dissenting ministers and missionaries of Calcutta and its neighbourhood also attended. There were eloquent speeches in testimony to his noble generosity and liberal mindset with Mr George Thompson complimenting Seal as, “a Hindu gentleman, who had nobly resolved to consecrate a large portion of the substances he had acquired by honourable exertion, to the intellectual improvement of the youth of his own nation to transmute his money into mind”.

Mutty Lall Seal’s Free College (later renamed as Mutty Lall Seal’s Free School and College) was to provide for the education of the Hindus to enable them to occupy posts of trust and emolument in their own country. The course of education included English Literature, History, Geography, Elocution, Writing, Arithmetic, Algebra, Philosophical Sciences, Higher Mathematics and practical application of Mathematics. The Institution was opened free of cost, only one rupee was charged per month to cover the expenses of books, stationery etc; and the surplus being expended towards furnishing the school with mathematical instruments. The number of students receiving education at one time was to be limited to five hundred.

During Seal’s lifetime the native society of Kolkata was divided into two parts. One was the reformist section led by Raja Ram Mohun Roy and the other was the conservative section led by Radha Kanta Deb. Most of the rich people of Kolkata were in the latter group. Radha Kanta Deb strongly opposed both the move to ban Sati and efforts for remarriage of widows, many of who were child-widows. Although Mutty Lall Seal was a conservative, he was in favour of Raja Ram Mohun Roy’s efforts of abolishing Sati, supported the cause of women’s education as well as remarriage of widows. He made a public offer for a dowry of 1000 rupees to the person who should have the courage to break through the ancient prejudices of caste, and marry a widow. 

On May 20, 1854 Mutty Lal Seal breathed his last. Seal’s obituary that was published in the Hindu Intelligence described him as the, “richest and most virtuous Baboo of Calcutta”.

As a philanthropist, Mutty Lall Seal founded an alms house at Belgharia (in the suburbs of Kolkata) in 1841 where on an average five hundred people were fed daily and that is even now open to the poor. 

Seal also constructed a bathing ghat on the bank of the Hooghly River that was christened after him as the Mutty Lal Seal Ghat. The Ghat stands on four Corinthian columns that support the parapet. A Shiva temple that has been built at a later date can also be seen at the Ghat.

Ferry service from Mutty Lall Seal Ghat commenced in 1980. Today commuters can go to Baghbazar, Sovabazar, Cossipore and Howrah from the Mutty Lall Seal Ghat.

Mutty Lall Seal Ghat

Ghats of Kolkata… Revisited: Baboo Ghat

Baboo Ghat: Circa 1880

In 1823, Rani Rashmoni’s father breathed his last. In order to perform his post-cremation rites Rashmoni visited a ghat on the banks of Hooghly — she was pained to see the dilapidated state of the ghat and left soon after offering her prayers. On her return to the Janbazar Palace, Rashmoni requested her husband Raj Chunder to renovate the ghat.

            Moved by his wife’s empathy Raj Chunder first approached the concerned Garrison Officer of the area. Thanks to the mediation of the Officer, Raj Chunder met Lord William Cavendish Bentinck, the then governor-general of Bengal. Raj Chunder sought permission to build a ghat on the Hooghly and construct the approach road from Janbazar to the precincts of the ghat. Bentinck appreciated the merit of the initiative and summarily gave his stamp of approval to the projects.

            The Ghat was completed first and inaugurated in 1830. Even today one can see a plaque on the façade of this Ghat that is made up of thirty-six pillars and an Ionic style parapet. It reads:

The Right Honourable Lord William Cavendish Bentinck, G.C.B. & G.C.H. Governor General & c. & c. & c. with a view to encourage the direction of private munificence to works of public utility has been pleased to determine that this Ghaut constructed in the year 1830 at the expense of Baboo Raj Chunder Doss, shall hereafter be called Baboo Raj Chunder Doss’s Ghaut.

It needs to be noted that at the time of the Ghat’s construction, Strand Road was lower than its present elevation. The water level, therefore, was parallel to the Road on the other side of the Ghat right below the steps. Supply of water from the Hooghly was accommodated through eight Gullyghars that were constructed for this specific purpose by the Ghat.

One would take the steps to reach the waters of Hooghly — as such this meant that from a distance, Baboo Ghat had remarkable resemblance to a two-storied house. While the lower level was used for bathing purposes, the upper level acted as the venue for performing religious rites. It is also interesting to note that the upper level had verandah and tastefully guarded by balustrades on all sides. This meant that one could not directly access the Hooghly from this level. The steps that we see at present were added later.

   The lower level of Baboo Ghat was buried at a later date when Strand Road’s level was raised — first by soil filling and then with construction of the metalled road.

Baboo Ghat: At present

Ghats of Kolkata… Revisited: The Gate that lends its name to a Ghat

A view of the Water Gate as recorded by W Bailey

Although the Maidan is generally regarded as a green space like London’s Hyde Park, the lungs that help Kolkata to breathe, it was conceived strictly for military purposes. The space had to be large enough and level enough for unrestricted field of fire from Fort William in case the fort was attacked. The original fort, started by Job Charnock and named for King William III of England, was damaged during the siege of the city in 1756.

            The new fort was built, not at the centre of the White Town, but a little to the side of it in Gobindapur, on a site selected by Robert Clive for strategic reasons. The thriving Bengali community there was reluctantly persuaded, with financial compensation, to move north towards Sutanati, taking along the “tutelary deity Gobindjee and its historic shrine”.

            It took thirteen years, until 1773, and an astonishing two million pounds to complete construction work. For obvious reasons, cooperation form the local workers were grudging, and eventually the Company had to use forced labour. A substantial amount of the money was spent “to ward off encroachment by the river, which as it happens, has receded in exactly the opposite direction,” noted HEA Cotton in Calcutta Old and New. But the European residents of Kolkata were impressed. As witness, a certain Mrs Fay who lived the city from 1780 and wrote to England about Fort William in most enthusiastic terms:

As you come up past the Fort William and The Esplanade, it has a beautiful appearance. Esplanade Row, as it is called, which fronts the Fort, seems to be composed of palaces; the whole range, except what is taken up the Government and the Council Houses, is occupied by the principle gentlemen in the settlement, no person being allowed to reside in the Fort William, but such as are attached to the Army. Our fort is also so well kept, and everything is in such excellent order that it is quite a curiosity to see it, all the slopes, banks and ramparts are covered with the richest verdure, which completes the enchantment of the scene.

Although the fort still impresses military historians, to most people its not particularly striking. Its shape is that of an irregular octagon — with three sides facing the Hooghly and the other five facing the Maidan.

A defensive ditch that was designed to be filled-up with water by opening a sluice from the river surrounded the Fort’s gates. Of the seven gates, two faces the Hooghly River — the sluice, for all strategic reasons, was constructed under the northern one. 

The gate was christened as the Water Gate, and popularly known amongst the locals as the Pani Darwaza. The ditch next to the Strand Road that is now dry used to be filled with water. Pani Ghat, named after the Gate is located on the western side of this landmark. The Gwalior Monument is situated to the south of this Ghat on the riverfront.

Pani Ghat

 

Ghats of Kolkata… Revisited: Judges Ghat & The Gwalior Monument

Left: Sir Elijah Impey; Right: Gwalior Monument

The promulgation of Regulating Act of 1773 by the King of England paved the way for establishment of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Calcutta. The Letters of Patent was issued on 26 March 1774 to establish the Supreme Court of Judicature at Calcutta, as a Court of Record, with ‘full power and authority’ to ‘hear and determine all complaints for any crimes’ and also ‘to entertain, hear and determine any suits or actions against any of His Majesty’s subjects in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa’.

            Sir Elijah Impey (13 June 1732 – 1 October 1809) was appointed as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, Chief Justice of the Sadr Diwani Adalat. His presence at the Court ensured a few notable cases. In 1775 he presided at the trial of Maharaja Nandakumar, who was accused of forging a bond in an attempt to deprive a widow of more than half her inheritance. 

             It was at the insistence of Impey that a new Ghat was constructed a few yards to the north of Prinsep Ghat. This Ghat was specifically designated for the use of ‘high ranking’ British officials, especially Judges who were posted in India by the Empire to step on the Indian soil. The Ghat, therefore, was christened as the Judges Ghat. Interestingly, it is also referred to as the Gwalior Ghat, perhaps because of its proximity to the Gwalior Monument that is located a few paces away from the Ghat.

Judges Ghat

            Gwalior Monument, also known as Ellenborough’s Folly, or, The Pepperpot, is an octagonal cenotaph about 60 feet high, crowned with a bronze dome. It was erected in 1847 by Lord Ellenborough, the Governor-General of India, as a memorial to the officers and men who fell during the Gwalior War in 1843.

It was designed by Colonel H Goodwyn of the Bengal Engineers and constructed by Jessop and Company. The base is a single storied white marble structure with a spiral staircase leading to a marble cenotaph on the upper floor from the inside. The top of the monument is built like a Mughal ‘chhatri’ or umbrella supported by 8 bronze pillars. 

The dome of the cenotaph is crowned with a bronze dome cast from guns captured from the Marathas during the Gwalior War. One can enjoy the majestic Hooghly River seen along with the full view of the Howrah Bridge as well as the Vidyasagar Setu from the Gwalior Monument.

Gwalior Monument: A view of the dome

 

Ghats of Kolkata… Revisited: Prinsep Ghat

Prinsep Monument: Circa 1843

One of the finest monuments that stand tall even today on the banks of River Hooghly is the Prinsep Pavilion, or, Prinsep Monument. The Ghat named after the orientalist James Prinsep — as an entity is perhaps unique to India — for nowhere is it more of an institution in terms of accessibility to a body of water, be it an estuarine river, or, a rural tank than in the subcontinent. Mumbai has its harbour and its bandars, and Chennai once had its surf landings, but Kolkata, being the chief and practically only riverine port, had the luxury of being home to jetties and ghats from which to board, or, disembark on a sea-going voyage.

            Prinsep was meant to replace Chandpal Ghat as the official marine landing for VIPs arriving in town. Therefore a pucca pavilion was a necessity. There was no question about what style in which it should be executed. The City of Palaces would greet its important visitors in neoclassic stateliness. Six sets of Ionic pillars hold up this airy gateway to the city that is just as grand as the Mumbai’s Gate of India at Apollo Bandar, but lacking such a dramatic setting. It is in the same spirit of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, but without the scale and power, not to mention the quadriga on the roof.

            The augmentation of the Strand bund over the years caused the ghat proper to become less immediate to its original purpose. In 1906 the pavilion already stood over 100 metres from the river’s edge, the ghat steps having been buried under earthen fill that bolstered Strand Road. Still, it served as a great ceremonial entrance, especially conspicuous in the Royal Visits of 1875, 1905 and 1911. On both the later occasions, an amphitheatre, seating about 3,000 was constructed between the pavilion and the river in which to receive the royals and conduct them into the city. ‘It was roofed on either side, the heavy cornice of the archway being continued all around. The intervening space was carpeted in blue, and a small dias, with two golden Thrones beneath a canopy, were erected facing the river, just as the entrance to the archway’. Every governor-general and viceroy also entered and exited the city via Prinsep Ghat.

            The pavilion itself was of such mass and capacity that it could be put to conventional use. ‘Some of its arches have been filed in with venetians in order to form offices’.

            When it was decided to locate the immense Vidyasagar Setu at Prinsep Ghat, an enlightened choice was made to locate the Kolkata approach just to the south of the venerable pavilion. It would have to stand in the shadow of the new upstart, but stand it would. This refreshing compromise is one of the most conspicuous examples of how modern Kolkata has added a needed bit of brutalism to the city, yet not at the expense of an historical monument. Now the pavilion, after a sequence of tedious restoration, is in better fettle, having weathered the stormy wilderness of the Vidyasagar Setu’s construction.

            James Prinsep (1799 ~ 1840), to whom this ghat was ‘erected in his honour by his fellow-citizens’, was a brilliant member of a famous family long associated with India. He trained as an architect with Augustus Pugin, but became Assistant Assay Master of the Mint at the age of twenty. He was also Mint Master for the facility in Benaras. James Prinsep also built an arched bridge over the Karamnassa River near the fabled city and restored the minars of Aurangzeb’s masjid that so dramatically overlook the Ganges. His most famous contribution was as a scholar of Pali texts that he successfully deciphered. He was also secretary of the Asiatic Society.

            Prinsep literally worked himself to death. From 1838 he began to suffer from recurrent headaches and sickness. He was forced to get away from his studies and left for England in November 1838 aboard the Herefordshire. Prinsep arrived in England in poor condition and did not recover. He died on April 22, 1840 in his sister Sophia Haldimand’s home at 31 Belgrave Square. 

News of his death reached India and several memorials were commissioned. A bust at the Asiatic Society was to be made by Francis Chantrey but was finished by Henry Weekes. The citizens of Calcutta erected the Ghat, a Palladian porch designed by W Fitzgerald in 1843, in his memory.

Prinsep Monument: Today