The last entry of the Calcutta Street Directory of 1915 published by P.M. Bagchi & Company Private Limited is on Halliday Street named after Sir Frederick James Halliday, KCB, the first lieutenant governor of Bengal (1854-1859).

The street was swept aside when the Calcutta Improvement Trust (set up in 1911) began the construction of Central Avenue, later renamed Chittaranjan Avenue. What only remains of this street is Motilal Seal’s Free College, whose headmaster in 1915 was Jagabandhu Ghosh, BA, according to the “directory”. This entry provides the names and sometimes the professions of the residents of each building on this thoroughfare, as it does in the case of all the other streets and lanes of the city of Calcutta listed in the “directory”. Its function, as scholar Gautam Bhadra pointed out at the launch of the tremendously value-added version of the original last Wednesday, was to “direct”.

Originally an appendage of the almanac or panjika published by P.M. Bagchi, the street directory in Bengali, unlike Thacker Spink & Company’s older one in English of mostly “white” neighbourhoods, covers the “native” areas too, and is part of the urban ethos, said Bhadra.

However, he pointed out that the first such “directory” was Bhabanicharan Bandyopadhyay’s satire published in 1823 titled Kolikata Kamalalaya where city slickers point out to country bumpkins the city landmarks. Marketing Bengali almanacs was a highly competitive business, and P.M. Bagchi had undertaken this huge survey of the city. Playwright and humorist Amritalal Basu had written in Kautuk Jautuk that sadly, Bengalis were losing their hold over Calcutta. But Basu was wrong, said Bhadra, for the city never belonged to Bengalis alone. This street directory presents a layered and complete picture of those living in the city. He congratulated Jayanta Bagchi, grandson of Kishorimohan Bagchi and current director of the firm, for bringing back to life this century-old street directory, adding valuable material to it. The book carries a wealth of old advertisements which indicate prevailing popular tastes.

“Current histories on Calcutta are sterile and irrelevant,” said scholar Sukanta Chaudhuri, on the occasion. There is hardly any material on the city’s growth and development, its present and future and public utilities. However, this street directory, unlike websites, telephone directories and Yellow Pages, presented a total picture.

Scholar Samik Bandyopadhyay, who is one of the two editors of the street directory, said when one goes through the book one gets a clear idea of community building. It initially projects a macro history, and a micro history thereafter.

The other editor, urban historian Debasis Bose, has written the preface which presents a history of P.M. Bagchi and that of other such directories. He traced the rag-to-riches story of the entrepreneur, Kishorimohan Bagchi, who had established the firm in 1888 and became a resident of Masjidbari Street in Darjipara, where he specialised in making rubber stamps, stamp pads, various kinds of inks, syrups, glue and toiletries.

The brand was so much in demand, fakes swamped the market. So he got the inimitable labels printed in Germany. Kishorimohan named the firm after his father, Peary Mohan, who had once disowned him for he feared his son would turn out to be a loser.

In mid-19th century, people could not think of beginning the day without consulting an almanac or panjika. But to give his products a cachet, Kishorimohan imported two printing presses from England. Besides churning out typical Battala fare, he also brought out Harisadhan Mulhopadhyay’s popular history of Calcutta in novel form titled Kolikata Ekaler O Sekaler. Kishorimohan died at the age of 55 in 1923.

During the days of the East India Company, the pundits of Bhatpara, Nabadwip and other centres of learning, on an invitation from Maharaja Krishnachandra, put their heads together and standardised the dates of all festivals. Almanacs began to be printed probably at the beginning of the 19th century. To make them even more popular, invaluable information on postal and legal fees and suchlike, began to be added as these tomes became weightier. Thacker Spink’s almanac dominated the scene for 80 years.

Among Bengalis, Ramanath Das was the first to publish an almanac with a treasure trove of information needed all the time. When Kishorimohan first published the street directory priced at one and half rupee (against Rs 24 for the Thacker Spink one), a review read: “A Bengali Directory with a Bengali Almanac on the model of Messrs Thacker, Spink and Co’s work on the same line. This is perhaps the first attempt of its kind that has been made by a native of Bengal.”

But Kishorimohan did not ape the English. His team of field workers fanned out all over the city to gather information and nothing was untouchable for them. Even the names of the denizens of Sonagachhi and other red-light areas are mentioned here. Sadly we have no inkling about the identity of these field workers.

In those days, when there was no compulsion for being politically-correct, there was no reason for concealing regional chauvinism, and derisive nicknames for settlers from our neighbouring states in eastern India were freely used. Many neighbourhoods were named after the caste which perhaps dominated that area. Take for instance Chasha Dhobapara (now Girish Park north) from No. 146 Baranasi Ghosh Street. It was intersected by Brahmanpara Lane. Nothing escaped the attention of those who did the field work – thus vacant plots, ponds, slums…everything was indicated along with the address.

There are interesting nuggets on the history of Calcutta. There are several entries on the Banaji family, the first Parsi family to settle down in Calcutta – Parsi Church Street, where Rustomji Cowasjee Banaji established the first fire temple of the city in 1839, Parsibagan Lane near Maniktala, Parsibagan Street. Falgun Das Lane, which intersects Sankharitolla Street, was named after a man from Odisha who made a fortune by supplying coolies to ships.

What we know as Loudon Street was actually Loudoun. The wife of Lord Hastings was in her own right the Countess of Loudoun. The “u” was dropped at some point of time. An entry recounts how electric lights were introduced in the Kalighat temple (Kalighat First Lane). At No. 15 Gobinda Sarkar Lane near Banchharam Akrur Lane was a Philharmonic Orchestra, and a Bengali circus company belonging to Nabagopal Mitra operated from Canal West Road. Asutosh Mukherjee’s slum at 1-6 Kankulia Road included paddy fields, and the man owned other properties on the road. Was this Mukherjee our ” Banglar Bagh”

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta,India / Front Page> Calcutta> Story / by Soumitra Das / Friday – September 04th, 2015