A Storied Neighbourhood in North Kolkata, Ensconced Roughly Between the Hooghly and Chitpur Road, Was Where the Merchant Princes
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] A yellow taxi passes by a house on Pathuria Ghat Street in north Kolkata district that continues to be dominated by old palatial houses bound by narrow lanes > A resident of the Jorasanko Rajbati on Chitpur Road stands in the court- yard of the house on a winter afternoon. The area was once dominated by the Tagore clan, including the family of Rabindranath Tagore A storied neighbourhood in north Kolkata, ensconced roughly between the Hooghly and Chitpur Road, was where the merchant princes of Bengal built their magnificent palatial houses at the height of British mercantile domination of eastern India. Today these Raj Baris stand crumbling but are still guardians of a burnished part. Devjyot Ghoshal visits them with his camera ]The marble-floored Thakur Dalan, or worshipping platform, of the Jorasanko Rajbati, where prayers are still held and incense sticks burnt before small potted Tulsi plants < Remains of the main doorway and turret of Tagore Castle in Pathuriaghata’s Prasanna Kumar Tagore street. Built by Jatindra Mohan Tagore, it was supposedly modelled after Windsor Castle. Extensively remodelled and badly mutilat- ed, as a consequence of unplanned alternations and exten- sions, the building stands as evidence of the profligacy of Kolkata’s erstwhile trader nobility. ] ]The imposing facade, complete with Corinthian columns, of the Lohia Matri Sewa Sadan, a maternity home, that was once the residence of Raja Haren Sil, a merchant prince ] Remnants of an older, grand building stand merged and mutilated with modern construction on Muktaram Babu Street, not far from the Mullick family’s famed Marble Palace ( Clockwise from left) The facade of the Jorasanko Thakur Bari, a family house of the Tagores and the birth- place of Rabindranath Tagore. Now a part of the Rabindra Bharati University, it remains one of the bet- ter preserved ancient palaces of north Kolkata The dimly-lit veranda of Jadulal Mullick’s house on Pathuria Ghat Street where members of the family still reside in the sprawling, multi- storied mansion. Cast-iron decora- tions line the courtyard with original light fittings; ancestral belongings are still visible in the surrounding living quarters Cars stand parked before the crum- bling columns of the massive man- sion locally referred to the ‘Mullick Bari’, right beside the Marble Palace on Muktaram Babu Street, that was also built by the Mullicks.