The confluence

Well, there is still a lot of doubt inside me, that whether I should keep the name I have just given to this post or should I change it. When Jean Renoir came to Calcutta in its last days of glory during 1949-50 under the eminent shadow of a divided land, he shoots one of his most coveted films, Le Fleuve (The River). There is abundance of rivers in the entire world, even in India. There are so many great civilizations that thrives thousands of years around the great rivers. But the famous French director chose our very own Calcutta. I am not the right person to comment why, but I feel, the man and the river in this city, has a special connection, and those connections are physically representing in the Ghats alongside the river Ganga. Now you can imagine why I have put the word Confluence. Yes, the confluence of man and the river.

Whenever I visit these parts of the city, the footage of nostalgia tends to engulf me and I am almost, always taken into a time journey of sights and sounds of history playing like in a movie theatre. I do not recollect my past lives, no I do not, but with the memories of those wonderful, life-like oil paintings and drawings of Ganga and the Ghats at Victoria Memorial Hall and photographs of Bourne & Shepherd, Johnston & Hoffmann and other studios of British Calcutta complimented with a flight of imagination and observation, it is not too difficult to visualise the charming Old Calcutta in the decaying new.

There was a time when Calcutta adorned the typical dark green southern Bengal landscape with few sparsely populated small villages. The Ghats at Ganga at that time were few. They were mostly bamboo and wooden semi-permanent structures made for mostly small and medium sized country boats. Then, of course came the ambitious Englishman with his ships and the fate of this little corner of the world changed forever. The grandeur architectural marvels that the city received in next 250 years has put the “City of Palaces” tag to its name. But the historic receptivity and artistic sensitivity of the civic authorities are so commendable that they have chosen to reinstate with a new mold, and allowed the demolition of the GREAT, heritage the city is carrying with it. Fortunately, the river and its Ghats were never on the primary radar of the civic authorities, hence, they still can hold a flavor of old Calcutta charm.   

Not sure how, but on contrary to most of the people’s choice, who like to take the breeze of the river at the lazy afternoon with tea, I like to visit the Ghats in the morning, when it’s typically tourist free with some notable exceptions of pre-wedding shooting (or shoot-out?) at Princep Ghat. They have a very different character in the morning. If you pay a visit to Babu Ghat in the morning, you can see hundreds of people bathing in the river. It is not only convenient for the people nearby, but also rinsing the body in holy water. This is an old tradition of the city. Further north towards Bagbazar ghat, the number of people grows in every Ghat. The cleanliness of inside is ensured by the holiness of Ganga, while the cleanliness of the surrounding is always questionable. This is true for most of the bathing Ghats in Calcutta. While Princep Ghat at the south and ferry Ghats like Chandpal Ghat, Babughat, Fairly Place and Armenian Ghat are relatively much cleaner and well kept than its neighboring colonial houses for the bathing, the modern additions and a couple of parked sedans and yellow cabs sort of testified the old enterprise doing brisk business in the present times. I felt happy to see the continuity. As I moved forward past the big buildings on the other side of the Strand Road on my right where early morning workers are sipping the piping hot tea with a nankhatai biscuit at the other hand, a welcoming, winding office block revealed itself.

Towards the Howrah bridge, the last Ghat you can visit is Chhotelal Ghat, largely unknown to general mass, since they are more aware of the umbrella name, The Mallick Ghat. There are many small Ghats under the name Mallick Ghat and Jagannath Ghat, which is Calcutta’s whole sale flower market. Here the atmosphere is something bit different. At the early morning, there is a huge crowd who are saling and buying flower, with a condiment of hordes of Photographers with their signature BIG and expensive cameras who almost are equal in number of the buyers or sellers. But when you take few steps towards the river, you pass an alley and at the other side, it is calm and quite. A small old Hanuman temple, few Pahalwans doing practice mock wrestling, a comparatively cleaner bathing Ghat with fewer people, Howrah bridge is almost hanging over the head and few people in a group of four to six seating here and there in a round. They are smoking. If you want to have some taste, go there just place your hand in front of them, they will give you a smoke without asking any question. It is not tobacco but weed. Calcutta always have a place for the new comers and embraces them towards the main stream. 

Far north, the same story repeats. At the southern part, it is the Princep Ghat which is very attractive, decorated, with nice elegant people, restaurants and so much. I like Princep Ghat very much, since it it still keeps the old charm of Calcutta alive. But when you go towards north, you can feel the Ghats are parts of the daily life of the people and they are alive. They are alive with their unclean, crowded environment and their normal lower middle class people. It is a confluence of the river and the human life which is also flowing for thousands of years.