The Giridih which I knew

The Giridih which I knew

I visited Giridih on 4^th February. It was a short visit. Reaching Giridih on the afternoon of 4^th; my wife and I stayed there on the 5^th – only to return the next day. I came back with a melancholy feeling. The town where I had spent my adolescence and youth, was lost. It was lost in the maze of numerous upcoming shops and commercial establishments; the beautiful road to Usri Falls was dotted by ugly black iron mills bellowing dark smoke – covering the blue sky that had been so characteristic of Giridih.

As I crossed the river Barakar on the Dumri – Giridih Road, I was wanting to stop at the huge bungalow to my right which had been owned by the Roy Choudhurys of Gauripur [an erstwhile Princely State]. But to my utter dismay, the bungalow was nowhere to be seen and a huge multi storied building was under construction a few yards away. The low boundary wall was however there, encircling a number of hills. This bungalow was initially built by an European whose passion was catching huge poisonous snakes from the nearby jungles. He had also built a strong iron cage on his verandah where he had kept a tiger! This place was about eight kilometers from Giridih and along with my friends Prabir Chattoraj, Rana Pratap Choudhury [the three musketeers], we would  cycle up to this place to unravel the mysteries of  the bungalow. This was during our early teens and we had perhaps not grown up from our Agatha Christie stories! We had befriended the guards telling them that we were visitors from Calcutta and would wander inside the mini palace! There were costly carpets; a billiard room with tables etc.;  expensive imported cutlery; varieties of spears, swords and other armory hung in a room the wash rooms were fitted with imported sanitary ware – yet hardly any one ever came to this building. The guards were huge men with thick moustache and I always had a feeling that we may be caught unawares by them while roaming inside the rooms – so I always kept an alert eye around ourselves.

I had made up my mind that I would stop and take a few photographs of this extraordinary building – but alas, it was not to be!

There were a number of other interesting bungalows along this road – a bungalow on the left hand nearer the town was known as the Myers Bungalow. Mr. Myers was reportedly an European merchant – probably had come to Giridih for trading in mica. He was a big fat person and it is said that one of the early young Brahmo settlers had won a ‘bet’ to pat Mr. Myers’ huge pot-belly! I have seen this bungalow housing one Mr. Pearce – a Mica Consultant. Mr. Pearce had a lovely family. They were from Mangalore and lived in this bungalow during their stay in Giridih.

Further nearer the town there was a homeopath Dr. Dutta. A very renowned homeopath from an aristocratic family, he also lived in a palatial building. This building was razed to the ground in the early eighties after Dr. Dutta left Giridih.

The entire area is in the vicinity of coal mines. In those days these were underground mines and not open-case, so there was no pollution to the environment. Some of the mines had been abandoned by the NCDC (the mines were later taken over by CCL). Guards had been placed at these mines. We, the three musketeers, would cycle to the guards and befriend them to allow us to measure the depth of the mines. We would also use indigenous methods to see if poisonous gases existed in these mines by lighting candles and lowering the same with a long pre-measured string. At times to camouflage our identity we would paint moustaches and beards on our faces using my elder sister’s eye-brow pencil! True, those were our golden days!

The Geological Survey of India were still searching for deposits of coal and other mineral during the sixties. A young geologist was deputed by the GSI in the area. It was not possible for him to walk to the town every day and so, my father made arrangements for his stay in one of the unused buildings after talking to the owner. He had been recommended by one of my aunts who was a scientist in the GSI. Unfortunately, after a month, this person went missing. There was no telephone in those days. After a frantic search with his friends, my father located him in another bungalow. It seems he had fainted while working in the fields and had been carried there by some passers by.

Barganda was the  area in Giridih where as a ten year old I first came. I had been brought to Barganda from Patna as a fifteen-day old but was taken to Hazaribagh after a few months.  A light green colored single storied  building with a flight of stairs leading to the verandah  standing at the corner of Barganda was called – “Pastry Building” by my elder sister. It seems that during her earlier tenure in Giridih, she went to the bazaar with my grand uncle and had somehow lost her way. It was this “Pastry Building” which helped her to locate her way back home.

This building, named “Upala Path” was built by a Deputy Magistrate Mr Suresh Chandra Sarkar. Mr. Suresh Chandra Sarkar’s eldest son was Mr. Subimal Sarkar – a well known professor in Patna and his youngest son was Dr. Sushobhan Sarkar a professor of History in Presidency College, Kolkata. The building had a beautiful garden and was the hub of Brahmo activities. Opposite this house was what we saw, a dilapidated tiled bungalow – which was the residence of Dr. Sashi Bhushan Basu. Although he was an ordinary teacher, Dr. Basu was regarded as the father of Geology. His daughter Dr. Maitreyi Basu resided in the next cottage known as Majhla Kothi and the third cottage was that of Sir Nilratan Sarkar [after him the Medical College in Calcutta was named]. Dr Nilratan Sarkar died in this building which much later was the office of the Life Insurance Corporation of India and later, an oil mill! Although I did not see most of these luminaries, yet I have seen the subsequent occupants of these buildings with lovely gardens, people living as a closed community. What a harmony!

There was another building with a marble plaque reading “Ma”. One Miss Radha Rani Lahiri, niece of Ramtanu Lahiri lived here. She had an impressive personality. My grandmother went to meet her and I had the opportunity of accompanying her. Miss Lahiri and my grandmother had been from the same Bethune Collegiate School and it was a pleasant meeting for them in 1960.

I can continue writing on the great people who were the then residents of this lovely town, where birds chirped and flowers bloomed and perhaps could write volumes, but none of the cottages exist now. Ugly shops – including paan shops have sprung up all along the boundary walls of these cottages – most of which are mere rubbles. 

I was really sad that I could not see our school! This High School, established in 1887 by leaders of the then Brahmo Samaj had produced luminaries like renowned scientist Prof. Gyan Ghosh and Mr. Probhat Mukhopadhyay, author of the biography of Rabindranath. The school building was hid behind ugly – dirty tyre repair shops, shops dealing in motor car spares and what not!

 Two Brahmo Samaj buildings were there – one was  the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj and the other was the Naba Bidhan Brahmo Samaj. I was told that the 99 year lease given by the government for the Naba Bidhan Brahmo Samaj had not been renewed and land sharks have broken the Samaj building for construction work.  The Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, however is well maintained by our friend Nittyendu Sundar Banerjee. They have regular worship there and they are maintaining a beautiful garden inside the campus. Mr. Nittyendu Banerjee’s father was a unique personality. He had inducted Uttam Kumar into the Bengali film industry. He possessed a letter written to him by none other than Gurudev Rabindranath himself on his mother’s demise.  I had the opportunity of reading the letter.

While returning from the Giridih trip, I had the feeling that such melancholy is what one would have, should s/he happen to visit her/his old place of earlier years – sans his close friends and relatives!