Streetwise Kolkata: Time stands still in Beniatola Street, a narrow lane named after the city’s mercantile class
Soon after British East India Company employee Job Charnock arrived in Bengal in 1686 and established the foundations of a British settlement in the region that later became the city of Calcutta, it began drawing large numbers of merchants from across the Indian subcontinent. People from various communities – Armenians, Hindus and Muslims – came to Calcutta to engage in trade under the protection of the company, writes author Sushil Chaudhury in his book ‘Companies, Commerce and Merchants Bengal in the Pre-Colonial Era’.
Over the course of its pre-Independence and post-Independence history, the city’s wealthy and privileged merchant class – those whose families had lived there for generations and those who were drawn to Calcutta in hopes of acquiring similar fortunes, grew in number and influenced the development of the city into an urban metropolis and the capital of the British Raj.
Hence, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some in the baniya or the merchant class of the city not just received the grace and favour of the British East India Company officials, but also found themselves commemorated in the form of street names across the city. Among the streets so named is Beniatola Street in north Kolkata, just a few lanes down from BK Paul Avenue.
Express Photo by Neha Banka
The ‘benia’ in the street’s name is a mispronunciation of the term ‘bania’ or ‘merchant’, while the term ‘tola’ in ‘Beniatola’ means ‘place of habitation’, writes P Thankappan Nair in his book ‘A History of Calcutta’s Streets’. This narrow north Kolkata street is among the handful of streets and bylanes in the city that have somehow escaped the rapid destruction of its architectural heritage in the colonial style.
In September this year, the street became a subject of conversation in Kolkata after the neighbourhood community club, the Beniatola Sarbojanin Durga Puja Committee, implemented its long-standing plans to install an 11-feet idol of Goddess Durga, weighing 1,000 kg and made of ashtadhatu or octo-alloy, an alloy commonly used to make casts of deities in India. At the entrance of the street, one section has now transformed into a temple structure where the Durga idol has been placed for permanent worship.
Beniatola Street is one of the last remaining lanes and bylanes of Kolkata that still give a sense of purono (old) Calcutta that is quickly disappearing and is now only visible in a handful of corners in this urban metropolis, besides in old films and photographs.
The sentiments that this street evokes in people familiar with purono Calcutta should perhaps not come as a surprise. In her book ‘Representing Calcutta: Modernity, Nationalism and the Colonial Uncanny’, author Swati Chattopadhyay writes that for over 150 years, several prominent business families called this lane their home. It is perhaps also why this street was one among the few centres of what authors Lina Fruzzetti, Ákos Östör call “a
local or parochial patriotism in the minds of its permanent residents,” in their book ‘Calcutta Conversations’.
At 77 Beniatola Street, stands a stunning red-brick mansion built in the colonial style. This building served as the residence of Butto Kristo Paul, who was among Calcutta’s first chemists. According to a report by the British Library, titled ‘Private Records of Some Leading Business Families of Early Colonial Bengal’, this estate originally belonged to Paul’s maternal grandfather and was where the former lived for an extended period of time.
The home appears to have been Paul’s primary residence in the early years of his life before he witnessed success and fame as a chemist in the city, and before he purchased his own properties in other neighbourhoods in north Kolkata. A plaque outside the building at 77, Beniatola Street marks the house as Paul’s one-time residence.
In Beniatola Street, there are at least two parar mishtir dokan or neighbourhood sweet shops where mishti can still be purchased for under Rs 10 apiece and the shopkeeper, who has been continuing his traditional family business, knows the lane’s residents by name, the likes of whom are getting increasingly rarer with each passing year in the city.
Express Photo by Neha Banka
Red-oxide rowaks or elevated platforms seen outside old houses, a classic architectural feature that led to the concept of adda, are still visible in this small residential neighbourhood, although they are fast disappearing elsewhere in the city as realtors find no use for them in modern apartment buildings.
Only someone who has grown up in Calcutta before the mid-1990s can truly understand how precious neighbourhoods like Beniatola Street are and appreciate and acknowledge its residents for not succumbing to the growing pressures from real estate developers. Thanks to them, for now, time stands still in this narrow lane in north Kolkata.
