The highlight of a railway heritage walk was the residence of the GM of South Eastern Railway that was once occupied by Wajid Ali Shah, the last ruler of Awadh

A white edifice overlooking the Hooghly in Garden Reach was built by the British in 1846, the architecture inspired by the Tower of the Winds in Athens.

The building, the highlight of a heritage walk on Saturday morning, was for a few years the home of Wajid Ali Shah, the last ruler of Awadh who was exiled to Calcutta.

But the first occupant of the home was Lawrence Peel, the chief justice of British India. He was the cousin of Robert Peel, two-time Prime Minister of England and one of the founding fathers of the Conservative Party.

The walk began at the South Eastern Railway headquarters in Garden Reach and culminated at the BNR (Bengal Nagpur Railway) House, the official name of the white bungalow that now serves as the residence of the general manager of South Eastern Railway.

“Fascinating titbits of colonial history is nested in every corner of the buildings in this area,” said Samrat Chowdhury, chief mentor of BAUL (Bespoken Architectural and Unique Legacies of Bengal), which organised the walk in association with the external affairs ministry and the railways.

The headquarters of South Eastern Railway (erstwhile Bengal Nagpur Railway) is a majestic red brick building with domes.

“The architecture is Indo Saracenic, also found in Madras High Court and Lucknow railway station. The red brick structure is occasionally relieved by stone terracotta. The western design is embedded with Indian features such as domes,” said J.K. Saha, chief heritage officer of South Eastern Railway, who guided the participants in the walk.

The construction of the building — spanning over 53,000sq ft — started in April 1906 and was completed in May 1907, a pointer to British engineering efficiency.

Several things have been left unchanged for over a 100 years, including the cast iron-Burma teak staircase to the glass door that leads to the general manager’s cabin. “The building has not needed any structural alterations,” said Saha.

Apart from railway officials and heritage enthusiasts, people from various walks of life took part in the walk on Saturday. Janavi Sanon, a 24-year-old architect, was one of them.

“This is my second railway heritage walk. As a student of design, this is an exciting journey. The history behind all these buildings makes it doubly interesting,” she said.

The deputy high commissioner of Bangladesh, Toufique Hasan, was a participant.

One of the main attractions was a newly opened heritage gallery at the railway office. A 119-year-old Schiedmayer piano was a key draw in the gallery.

Made in Stuttgart, the instrument was shipped to India in 1900. “It is difficult to say who brought it and who played it in Calcutta but it is vintage stuff and would fetch at least a crore in the antique market,” said Saibal Bose, senior railway engineer who has done extensive research on railway history.

A feedback from Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in a complaint book of a railway refreshment stall at Muri station, now in Jharkhand, is there on one of the shelves.

A cabinet is dedicated to shells made by the Kharagpur railway workshop of BNR during World War I and II. Resting beside the shells is a large splinter that was inside a bomb dropped by the Japanese in Garden Reach during World War II.

“People of the country need to know about this heritage. I want more and more schoolchildren and youngsters visiting these areas,” said Kajari Biswas, head of the external affairs ministry’s branch secretariat in the city.

Saha also explained why the area was called Garden Reach.

A reach is a length of a stream or river, usually suggesting a level, uninterrupted stretch. There is one such reach in the backyard of the headquarters. The botanical garden sits on the opposite bank.

“The reach and the garden gave this name,” Saha said.

In December, BAUL had organised a similar heritage walk around Howrah station. “We want to bring the railway heritage sites within the ambit of tourism. Ideally, there should be a single-window system that takes care of a guided tour of all these places. There is tremendous tourism potential here,” said Chowdhury.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Online edition / Home> Heritage / by Debraj Mitra in Calcutta / February 03rd, 2019

Sister Nectaria Paridisi of the Greek Orthodox Church is the only Greek left in the city

Sister Nectaria Paridisi sips on her Darjeeling tea. She is sitting in the lounge on the ground floor of the Greek Orthodox Church in Kalighat in south Calcutta and talking animatedly about a whole lot of things — the church, the state government’s lack of interest in the heritage property and its history, the uncaring locals. The room is full of antique furniture, framed photographs of bishops and Greek inscriptions. Flags of Greece, India and the bygone Byzantine Empire stand in different corners of the room. Our host is Father Raphael, a priest at the church. And the nun, Sister Nectaria, is the only Greek resident left in Calcutta.

To trace the beginning of Calcutta’s Greek association, however, we have to trek to Phoolbagan in the eastern part of the city. It is not difficult to miss the plaque at the entrance to the Greek cemetery. For one, the compound itself is surrounded by a gaggle of residential buildings and then there is the flurry of activity from the ongoing expansion work of the Kolkata Metro. Unlike some of the other cemeteries of the city, such as South Park Cemetery or the Scottish Cemetery, this one is smaller and way less verdant.

The caretaker, Basanta Das, says there are more than 200 graves here. Das, whose father and grandfather have also been caretakers here, says, “Not all the graves have bodies. Some of them are just epitaphs and tombstones.” Most of the graves have inscriptions in Greek. One such reads: “In the memory of Mavrody Athanass Mitchoo who died on December 9, 1855.” But the oldest grave is of Alexander Argeery, who died on August 5, 1777.

“From the 17th century, Calcutta was home to a Greek community,” says Sister Nectaria. In his book, Calcutta Old And New, H.E.A. Cotton writes: “The Greeks, like the Armenians, owe their association with Calcutta to the allurements of commerce.” According to Cotton, the first Greek settler of note in Calcutta was Hadjee Alexias Argyree, a native of Philippopolis, who came to Bengal in 1750 and earned his living as an interpreter.

In fact, it was Argyree who founded the first Orthodox Church of Calcutta. The story goes that in 1770, he set sail from Calcutta for Mocha and Jeddah. But his vessel was hit by a severe storm and was close to sinking. A devout, Argyree promised the gods that if he survived the peril he would found a church in Calcutta for its Greek inhabitants. True to his word, upon return to the city, he obtained relevant permissions and started to move on the purchase of a property. But then, he died in 1777.

Three years later the church came up. Writes Cotton, “…his family contributed a considerable sum, the remainder being made up by voluntary contributions, Warren Hastings heading the subscription list with 2,000 rupees.” Sister Nectaria confirms that the first Greek church to be built in Calcutta was indeed at Amratollah Street (in central Calcutta) and it had a cemetery adjoining it.

The first minister of the church was Father Parthenio, a native of Corfu, who settled in Bengal in 1775 and who is said to have sat for the figure of Jesus in German neoclassical artist Johann Zoffany’s painting, Last Supper.

The Greeks of Calcutta were a wealthy and powerful community. This is borne out by some of the epitaphs. One of them reads: “In the memory of Sir Gregory Charles Paul, Advocate General of Bengal, died on January 1, 1900.” Another grave belongs to Mavrodi Athanass Mitchoo, a planter.

According to Sister Nectaria, in 1922 another wave of Greeks fled their homeland. “A major reason was the genocide that happened at that time. Calcutta was an important port those days and so many came to Calcutta,” she says. The long and short of it, the Greek community continued to flourish till 1947 and, thereafter, began its denouement. Says Sister Nectaria, “Greeks started to leave India and move to London, Johannesburg, some moved back to Greece even.”

In 1924, the Amratollah property on which the Greek church stood was sold. Says Sister Nectaria, “The church authorities bought the Kalighat property and decided to move the cemetery out of town.” [At that time, Phoolbagan was not part of the city.]

The entrance to the Kalighat church building has two plaques on either side. The inscriptions are in Greek. Sister Nectaria translates it: “It is in memory of the Greeks who donated generously to build the first church in Amratollah… Their bodies are buried but their names will remain alive for generations.”

With the Greeks moving out, the church became non-functional and was finally locked down in 1972. And then, in 1991, it was reopened on the initiative of the Greek embassy. At the time, Sister Nectaria, who was posted in South Korea, was asked to come and take care of the church. Father Ignatios was in charge of the church. He also established the Philanthropic Society of the Orthodox Church.

According to the nun, the years of neglect had literally eaten into the church building. The whole place had been taken over by termites. She says, “It was just black. And I started cleaning through the layers of dirt. The termites had eaten all the ornaments of the Lord, the clothes, the books and even the wall clock.”

Sitting in the church that afternoon, it was difficult to imagine that scene. The wooden altar is now beautifully polished and has intricate panels and paintings related to the life of Christ, Virgin Mary, archangels Gabriel and Michael with their swords drawn out.

Calcutta is now emptied of its Greek populace. The church is frequented by local Christians and Sunday services are held regularly in Bengali. “Many Hindus also just come to pray. Sometimes I see Krishna monks, who come, sit, pray and leave silently,” says Sister Nectaria.

If she resents anything it is the attitude of the people in the neighbourhood. Breaking his silence for a change, Father Raphael says, “This is a Grade 1 heritage building [as declared by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation] and still we have to struggle for its maintenance.”

Sister Nectaria elaborates, “The local people force the guard to open the gates and act like this is their property. During Durga Puja, they put lights around the church. It is not as if we are against Durga Puja, but it is about the whole attitude. Whenever there is a festival, they block the church entrance and dump chairs, lights and sound equipment in the church premises as if it were a store room. And when I oppose, they call me an outsider.”

These days, Sister Nectaria visits the church only every other week. She remains busy in Bakeswar on the southern reaches of the city, where she is in charge of two orphanages under the Greek Church. Then there is the St. Ignatius High School, which is also under her supervision. And does she feel like an outsider?

She smiles, “Now? I am now half Indian.”

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Online edition / Calcutta / Home> Heritage / by Manasi Shah / February 02nd, 2019