This is an excerpt from Heritage Retailers of Calcutta: 1785 to 1950, by Ashish J. Sanyal, published by Notion Press. The author has shared stories of the oldest shop in individual categories, as well as those that reinvented themselves to remain relevant. Read more about the selection process here.
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1858 — BUTTO KRISTO PAUL, 92B Sovabazar Street, Sovabazar, Kolkata – 700 005
Finding Butto Kristo Paul, the chemist and druggist, was not a problem — a police sergeant at the exit of Sovabazar Metro Station directed me to “walk 10 minutes down this road and you will see. It is a three storied red brick house with a pair of elephant statutes at the entrance.” Perfect directions.
92B, Sovabazar, a moderately maintained but very impressive ancestral property belonging to the Paul family. On entering the shop, I was greeted by Jolly, a friendly Lhasa Apso, and an elderly gentleman wearing boxer shorts and an old yellow tee shirt. The elderly gentleman was doing his morning aarti (prayers), taking the burning lamp to different corners of the shop. This was Mr. Anup Paul, the present owner, but he prefers to call himself the custodian of the family business.
Anup Paul, the present owner, attends to a customer
The business was started in 1858 by his great grandfather Mr. Butto Krishna Paul, who came from a poor family in Shibpur to work in his uncle’s Ayurveda shop in Khengnaputty Lane, off Brabourne Road. Sometime during this period, Mr. Edwards, a senior official of the Bengal government, dropped his saddle bag containing gold and silver coins while riding in the area (it was open fields back then). Young Butto Kristo Paul found the saddle bag, quickly ran after Mr. Edwards and returned the saddlebag to him. Impressed by the young man’s honesty, they started a conversation. When Mr. Edward heard that Butto was working in an Ayurveda shop, he told him that he would help him by giving him the formula for a malaria tonic.
Butto had learnt the basics of Ayurveda in his uncle’s shop and had no difficulty in preparing the mixture which he called Edward’s Tonic and which is still being sold today. Their customers from Bihar call it “battis bemari ka dawai” (a cure for thirty-five ailments). They now have a manufacturing unit which is looked after by Ms. Chandrima Paul, the fourth-generation member of the family in the business, who is also a lecturer in a leading college in the city.
Anup Paul with Edward’s Tonic — “battis bemari ka dawai” (a cure for thirty-five ailments)
The family has had its ups and downs. At some point they had stopped making Edward’s but the late Mr. Arun Paul, who belonged to the third generation, stepped in to revive the tonic and it is being sold by the thousands—but only from the Sovabazar location.
Another person who also contributed to the growth of Butto Kristo Paul was Mr. Harishankar Paul, a 2nd generation family member who was very active in public life. Malaria was a huge problem in those days and the Calcutta Municipality spent lakhs of rupees to fight malaria, presumably with the aid of Edward’s Tonic!
Mr. Anup Paul is a brutally frank person and expresses his views strongly. He is also very proud of his family name and business. While I was in the shop, a salesman from one of the fastest growing Ayurveda companies walked in. Anup all but threw him out telling him to focus on their product quality and not on television advertisements, saying to him in Bengali “I have heard that a dead cow has been eating grass,” presumably a reference known only to the hapless salesman.
A medicine cabinet at the shop
When asked about the future of the family and the business Mr. Anup Paul told me that the founder, Mr. Butto Krishna Paul, or BKP as he was known, was a visionary and had foreseen the possibility of the family business breaking up. But it did not happen because BKP had so structured his will that the business and the family house could never be sold. “We cannot destroy what we have not built” says Mr. Anup Paul. Fifteen members of the family live in their ancestral home though not all of them take an active part in the business. But they remain close and celebrate family pujas, weddings, and birthdays together.
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