An exhibition of photographs of old Calcutta titled The City of Calcutta & Its Life opened in the Town Hall on Friday evening.
It is organised by Biplab Roy, administrator general and official trustee of Bengal, in collaboration with IAA-India, Unesco official partner. Seventy digital prints — many of them quite grainy — of the original photographs are on display till September 24.
Roy said these photographs will be part of the photography section of the State Judicial Museum & Research Centre which he has planned. The site of the museum will be announced in the near future but two of the 25 sections will open soon.
Roy said his office had originally opened in 1774. That is now in the New Secretariat Building at 1 Kiran Sankar Roy Road. His office occupies the ground and 10th floors.
The ground floor is the record room and it was the dumping ground of documents. It remained closed for 30-40 years and when it was finally opened on October 30, 2021, it was found that most of the documents had degenerated into dust. Amidst the debris was discovered a hoard of photographs and glass negatives.
Roy said Saikat Datta, who is well acquainted with the craft of photography although he is not a trained restorer, was employed to restore the prints. Datta said there are about 400 photographs of different sizes, which accounts for the uneven quality of the digital prints.
The photographs are mostly of the “Glory that was Calcutta” variety — images of the grand official buildings of “white” Calcutta confined to the BBD Bag and Chowringhee areas. They continue to feed nostalgia, although they are so far removed from the appalling realities of this city. Many of these images are quite familiar as they are frequently posted on social media.
The pontoon bridge across the Hooghly, the pagoda of Eden Gardens, Writers’ Buildings, panoramic views of the city from the Indian Museum roof and the Ochterlony Monument (Shahid Minar), the Bank of Bengal (the demolished State Bank of India building) etcetera etcetera, are all there. Surprisingly, one of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah’s fairy tale palaces comes to life in one print. These were all probably taken by the numerous European photographers who operated from the city.
But what would be of interest to viewers today is the natives as captured by the lens of these white men.
Food being sold in the open under makeshift thatched covers near a jetty. A procession of local people carrying umbrellas on their way to the Hooghly ghats. Young silversmiths with the fronts of their heads shaved. A turbaned man inside a palanquin carrying a dog. Glitzy tazias displayed in the Maidan. Porters lazing in the sun outside New Market. One of them wearing a fez stands tall in a lungi.
A hackney carriage parked before a hut with a pantile roof. The trussed corpse of a woman on a pyre surrounded by female mourners at a burning ghat. Sweepers armed with a basket and a broom. Washermen at dhobi ghat. Glimpses of the beautiful cast iron roofs of ghats. Lower Chitpur with trundling trams.
Colootolla was as bustling as it is today although the Fauzdari Balakhana was in good shape then. A signboard inscribed in Bengali says Ghosh Bros on Strand Road sells shirts, coats and jackets. Next to it is a grocery.
A vehicle running on rails carries a bevy of women tea leaf pickers and their baskets in a tea garden. Standing before them is their white overlord. We are brought closer to our ancestors in a colonized country.