One for the road

S N Banerjee Road, one of the most important thoroughfares of the city, is a curious mix of history and contemporary, a vibrant melting pot of Kolkata society itself. Subhro Niyogi and Krishnendu Bandyopadhyay stand at the crossroads of change
If one were to use a street as a metaphor for a myriad contradictions, it would have to be S N Banerjee Road, the one-way street that’s a lifeline for commuters travelling from Kolkata’s eastern neighbourhoods to the central business district and Howrah, and which is among the busiest in the city.
Yet, it is caught in a time warp, with the fabric unchanged for nearly two centuries. One of the oldest streets in Kolkata that figures in the city’s earliest maps, it is usually a picture of chaos with buses, cars, van rickshaws and hand-pulled rickshaws jostling for space with jaywalkers and porters.
Kalyani Pandit Bhattacharya at the temple on SN Banerjee Road that houses the Dharmaraj idol. Bhattacharya, a descendant of the temple’s founder, says Dharmatala derives its name from the deity
It is also the street of choice for rallyists, which earned it the moniker ‘Michhil Sarani’. Commuters can never be sure when they will reach their destination. On the odd day when there is no rally or traffic snarl, they could travel the 1.8km stretch between Moulali and Chowringhee in 10 minutes. On most other days, they’d be stranded for hours.
Yet, 25 metres below its surface, an ultra-modern two-way commute system is in the making, one that promises to re-establish order and transform commute into a breeze. The only hint of the giant machines boring twin tunnels for the Metro line that will also connect the city’s east to the centre and across the river to Howrah is the odd scaffolding that has been erected to support old mansions.

Even as the tunnel-boring machines snake their way through the earth like giant caterpillars, the imperious buildings, stately mansions and private homes built on either side of this thoroughfare over three centuries remain cocooned in the past, oblivious to the chaos that streams through the street in between all day.
The road itself can be divided into two distinct halves, neatly demarcated by the tram tracks that cut through Wellesley: the half towards Moulali is primarily residential, and the one towards Dharmatala is essentially commercial. There is a demographic divide too, with the residential half occupied by families that have lived in the city for generations, and the commercial half by migrants, both traders and labourers.

The sights and smells are also contradictory, ranging from the cloying essence of incense sticks to the inviting aroma of freshly fried kachuri-cholar daal, chowmein and chicken rolls sold in shops and roadside kiosks and from an air redolent of biryani and chaanp and the intoxicating whiff of country liquor to the invigorating odour of spices and perfumes to the subtle steely smell from lathe workshops to even the stink of raw fish sold on the pavements.
Beyond the streets, though, not much appears to have changed, at least on the surface. True, time has left its mark on several buildings. But they have weathered the seasons and stood firm, shoulder-to-shoulder, zealously protecting the old-world fabric that other neighbourhoods in the city have lost. “Ensconced in these buildings are tales of people who have resided or visited. There have been many famous personalities — such as pre-Independence era politician Surendra Nath Banerjee, after whom the street is named, his father and legendary medical practitioner Dr Durga Charan Banerjee, and hockey coach Pankaj Gupta, who had trained the legendary Dhyan Chand, a gold winner at three Olympic Games,” recounts 68-year-old local resident Dr Shankar Kumar Nath, an oncologist-cum-historian.
Other luminaries who had lived on the street include Rani Rashmoni, Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Kazi Nazrul Islam. Indian Mirror Street, off S N Banerjee Road, is named after the first newspaper to be published in India. On the very road lived Congress veteran Bijay Singh Nahar, whose house was frequented by the tallest politicians. A couple of houses away is where Bollywood star Nargis was born.
The most famous building on the street, and perhaps the oldest, is Rani Rashmoni’s mansion. Prasun Hazra, 54, a sixth-generation descendant of Mathur Babu, Rani Rashmoni’s son-in-law, to whom she bequeathed her vast estate that comprised nearly half of the plots on either flank of SN Banerjee Road, says the road led straight down to present-day Babughat prior to the construction of the Governor House. “Rani Rashmoni used to take a palanquin to bathe in the river every day,” he says. “It is from there that she had taken a boat ride, during which she had the vision of a Kali temple and founded Dakshineswar. Its most famous priest, Ramakrishna Paramhansa, lived in the house for a month, conducting both Durga Puja and Jagaddharti Puja.”
The Durga Puja, which began in 1790, continues in the mansion’s courtyard that is now fragmented and divided among descendants. Along the mansion facade are rows of shops retailing spices, betel but and other ingredients for mishti and zarda paan.
Further up the road is the house of another family with links to Ramakrishna. Its current resident, 82-year-old Arun Kumar Sarkar, great-great grandson of Mahendralal Sarkar, the personal physician of Ramakrishna and the founder of Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), lives in a nearly three-century-old house on this road. An inconspicuous entrance, nestled between rows of jewellery shops, leads to the lime-washed impressive thakur-dalan in the otherwise dilapidated house.
“The deed of the house with the address 102 Janbazaar Street states that this plot was given to zamindar Ramdhan Ghosh by the British in the 18th century in exchange for land acquired to build Fort William,” Sarkar says. “Other families, such as the Chatterjees and the Sadhukhans, were similarly compensated. That is how many families settled on either side of the road that was later named Corporation Street and, still later, S N Banerjee Road.”
A room in the house facing SN Banerjee Road once had a laboratory that was frequented by physicist C V Raman, who went on to win the Nobel Prize some years later. “It was through the recommendation of Mahendralal Sarkar’s son, Amritalal Sarkar, and Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee that Raman got a position in IACS. He used to come here to conduct his experiments,” Sarkar says. The room adjoining the lab was a baithak-khana or drawing room. It is now the CPI(ML) party office.
Back then, the street, illuminated by gas lights, was sedate. Ox and bullock carts carried goods, aristocrats travelled in horse-drawn carriages and the wealthy in motorcars. “Even in my childhood, it was relatively quiet,” recalls Montu Kumar Daw, who owns a pawn shop on the street and lives nearby. “In the late 1960s, the first private bus arrived. The 1970s saw the influx of the Bihari population and an explosion of hand-pulled rickshaws. Rallies began around the same time and continue to this day.”
The burgeoning population and traffic apart, he says the biggest difference has been the lack of upkeep, especially cleanliness. “Earlier, the streets used to be washed. Though there were cowsheds, we didn’t know what mosquitoes were, except in textbooks, till the 1960s,” says the 66-year-old.
Further up the road is the four-century-old Sitala temple that also houses the idol of Dharmaraj. Septuagenarian Kalyani Pandit Bhattacharya, a descendent of the temple founder, says Dharmatala derives its name from the temple deity. “Back then, this area had palm trees, and hence, the name Taltala,” she recounts.
Further still is Osmond Memorial Church, established in 1868. The congregation at the church has dwindled but it has lost none of its grandeur. Next to it is Taltala Library Row, a narrow alley that leads to the city’s oldest functioning public library founded in 1882. Though the 40,000 books are now gathering dust, residents are proud of the heritage. It had nearly shut down for want of funds before Amitendra Nath Chattopadhyay, 58, stepped in.
A seventh-generation descendent from the ‘Jungle-kata Chattujye’, a moniker given to the Chatterjees after a patch of thicket was cleared to build their house in 1758, following the family’s displacement from where Fort William is now situated, Chattopadhyay has made provisions of renting a floor in the library for children’s tuitions to fund the library’s bare needs.
“Sadly, in this age of e-books, no one wants to borrow real books. Unless we digitize the library, the books will be lost forever,” he rues.
But it is not just the library that is facing an existential crisis. Down S N Banerjee Road near Esplanade, is a half-burnt building which, till a few years ago, housed Bourne & Shepherd. Established in 1863, it was one of the first photographic studios in the world, with agencies across India, London and Paris. A devastating fire destroyed much of the studio’s priceless photographic archive.
“The age of digitization had not arrived then. Much of Kolkata and, indeed, Indian history documented in photographs, were lost forever,” recounts Utpal Biswas, 68, co-owner of Metropolitan Photo Stores next door, which is also on the brink of exiting the photography business that has become largely irrelevant with the advent of digital photography and cellphone cameras.
Not just photography stores, cinemas, too, are on the way out. Two theatres on the street — Lotus and Elite — have downed shutters; Regal is on the sickbed. With all single-screen theatres in the belt, except New Empire, shutting down, it is only a matter of time before the projector’s whirr falls silent.
Anadi Cabin, on the same footpath, is also a pale reflection of its glorious past. Known to once serve the best Mughlai paratha and mutton kasha, its haloed clientele in the last century included matinee idol Uttam Kumar. Now, few noteworthy people stop to bite into the greasy stuff it dishes out.
Another shop on the opposite footpath has, however, managed to hold its own. A few years ago, it even got a fillip when it featured in the movie ‘Piku’. A scene in the film featured megastar Amitabh Bachchan cycling to the shop and buying kachori.
The road also houses two magnificent mixed-use domed buildings, fine specimens of colonial architecture, complete with projected pediments, balconies with plain columns and Corinthian capitals. The Whiteways and Laidlaw Building, constructed in 1905, was the headquarters of the firm set up in 1882 by Robert Laidlaw with branches in 20 Indian cities and Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai. The building housed a department store on its ground and first floors with the two other floors housing apartments and offices that continued till 1962. The store continued until 1962, after which it was acquired by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co, which renamed it the Metropolitan Building. Following years of neglect, the building was restored in early 2000 and now houses a modern department store.
Another building, Futnani Chambers, built a century-and-a-half ago, is crying for repairs. The building, which once housed a famous nightclub called Golden Slippers, famous for classic jazz and rock ’n’ roll and housed the head office of shoe giant Bata India, is now dilapidated. But the 120-odd tenants, including Mughlai restaurant Aminia, which occupy the building, are confident that the “rock-solid” building can weather another century with ease.
Legend has it that among the residents in the quarters above was Rabindrasangeet exponent Debabrata Biswas, popularly called George-da. Old-timers recall how Goerge-da would sit on the balcony with his feet spread out, humming songs even as the building’s residents went about their daily chores. The music has changed now. Garishly dressed crooners now belt out Hindi film numbers in the two cheap bars — Delite and Paris Bar — at the building’s ground floor.
The street has two other watering holes that serve country liquor — Barduari and Khalashi Tola — and are patronized by the subaltern: porters, rickshaw-pullers and other daily labourers. It’s difficult to now imagine that these very rudimentary bars once attracted poets Sunil Ganguly and Shakti Chattopadhyay.
The twin tunnel-boring machines will carve out two tunnels under S N Banerjee Road. One will pass under the pavement adjoining Futnani Chambers and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation headquarters, which has had Subhas Chandra Bose among its many distinguished mayors. The other will pass under Metropolitan Building. Both tunnels will run parallel till they turn left below Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road and head towards Sealdah via Wellington Square and Bowbazar.
Seated in a dust-laden shop with the magnifier loupe fixed to his right eye, 75-year-old Kanhailal Dutta peers into the innards of a wrist watch that has stopped ticking. Behind him is a grimy showcase and a green wall, on which hang many clocks that haven’t found takers.
“The days of watches and clocks that required to be manually wound have passed,” Dutta says. “In fact, even battery-operated watches are not finding takers as people now check the time on their cellphones. I once had a dozen repairmen working under me. Now, I am the sole person attending to the odd client. The business started by my forefathers will last as long as I do,” remarks the silver-haired owner of Time Corner, where time itself appears to be delicately balanced on the cusp of change.