The Pyramids, The Dome and The Square

Calcutta is enchanting
Calcutta beckons me
Calcutta gets me exploring
Calcutta gets me tasting more and more…

Yes, Kolkata is one place where I always run short of time to see the heritage places and eat at equally old joints. I was recently there for a short time and went to some of these places and, as usual, fell more in love with this city despite all its decadence and economic stagnation. Kolkata is an enigma and paradox where pockets of modernity like the underwater metro along with the archaic snail-paced trams and hand-pulled rickshaws still chug people to their destinations in some pockets. Come, let me take you down….

The Pyramids

You must be wondering…a Pyramid in Kolkata? No, there is none. I was just referring to the shape of the Bengali shingara, in the making of which a simple twist and fold of the outer covering gives it its signature triangular shape. The little conical savouries look like the pyramids in miniatures. Please do not call this beautiful gastronomic delight samosa.

Ode to a Samosa 

Oh Samosa, my love
Love ya four seasons long
Want you morning, day and night
Your crispy coat and hot spice inside
Always make me ask for more
But when I go eastwards ho
And devour the smaller and tastier Bengali shingara
I start singing a song
Of love deeper than thou
Don’t ask me why
Maybe for its thinner crispier coat
Maybe the potatoes inside are cut finer
Maybe it’s the added crunchy peas and peanuts
When they come close to me, my lips reach out to kiss
My mouth goes munch munch
Soon they melt away after every crunch
In Kolkata they also make the shingara
With cauliflower and call it phoolkopir shingara
The mutton one is simpler to remember.... motton shingara
And the Bongs also have maachher shingara with you know what’s inside
So darling Samosa, I shall soon be back to you
Please do excuse my minor misdemeanour
On this temporary detour
My love for you shall never die. 

I find these shingaras completely irresistible and had the Egyptian Pharaohs known about these delights from the East, they surely would have made sure their subjects packed them bagfuls for their journey into the next world. This time, while I relished the regular shingara, I also had another version of it which quite blew me off. One was the malai shingara made of khoya and dry fruit stuffing and chocolate shingara which had a filling of chocolate fudge and dry fruits. And this extraordinary twin pyramids came to us from an old friend of D who bought it at the famous confectioners Girish Chandra Dey & Nakur Chandra Nandy of Ramdulal Sarkar Street. This father-in-law and son-in-law duo family has been perfecting its art since 1844 at a small shop with grilles outside giving the outlet the appearance of a jail. While the city keeps growing older, the tradition of making fine sweets goes on forever.

The Dome

Meet the country’s oldest post office, the Kolkata GPO with its magnificent dome and rows of marvellous Corinthian pillars which, apart from the Howrah Bridge and the Victoria Memorial, often appears in movies and calendars of yore as an integral part of the skyline of this heritage city. The GPO at Dalhousie Street was celebrating its 250^th year of existence on March 24, 2024. I did my little reconnaissance of the place in the limited time at hand and then returned home to do my research and kicked myself for not having spent more time there. 

Did you know-

a.      Where the GPO is located is the site of the first fortification of the infamous East India Company called Fort William?

b.    The imposing building which houses the post office today was designed in 1864 by Walter B. Greenville and was completed in 1868.

c.   The alley beside the post office was the site of the guardhouse where the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta happened in 1756. After Siraj-ud-daulah, the ruler of Bengal, defeated the East India Company forces stationed at Fort William, over a hundred of the captured soldiers were kept in a tiny room which was no more than 14 by 18 feet and the following morning only a handful survived.

d.  The red building adjoining the present GPO is the original building and was called the Calcutta Collectorate by the British Government after they took over the reins of power in 1857.

e.    Kolkata GPO is one of the 5 GPOs with a Philatelic Bureau and I was lucky to lay my hands on the special cover to commemorate 250 years of the iconic GPO.

f.      In 1896, the clock on the dome which can be seen from all sides, was added to this imposing structure. It was built by the manufacturers of the fames Big Ben of London and cost a sum of Rs 7,000.

India’s first post office was established in 1774 by Warren Hastings. The British East India Company had cemented its position after victories at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and Battle of Buxar in 1764. With the Treaty of Allahabad, they won the right to collect tax on behalf of the Mughal Empire and, hence, needed to develop strong communication system for movement of men, materials and money safely and quickly. In 1793, Lord Cornwallis introduced the Permanent Settlement system that helped the zamindars to amass huge wealth and the responsibility of postal system was vested in them. This is the time when the country saw the emergence of runners who would run night and day carrying bags full of documents, letters and currency from one post office to another braving all difficulties. Since then, the postman became a part of people’s lives delivering messages of joy and telegrams of sadness and money to the needy. Alas, today, with the onset of social media, the post man is someone you get to see for a handful speed and registered posts and on days following Diwali when they come knocking for the annual bakshish.

The old Collectorate Office also houses a museum which I could not see because the person with the key had still not arrived till 11a.m. All I could do was to somehow take pictures of the runner’s life size statue and an old post box standing outside the museum. This GPO must be also the only one in India to have a café aptly named The Parcel Café. This café is beautifully done up and you can even buy memorabilia including the holy Gangasagar Gangajal.

The Market Square

Let me now jump over from Dalhousie to Lindsay Street and shift focus from buying stamps to relishing cakes. By the mid-19^th century, the number of Britishers in India had increased and they wanted market exclusively for themselves. The Calcutta Corporation quickly agreed to their demands and commissioned Richard Roskeli Bayne as architect and Mackintosh Burn as the builder of a shopping arcade which opened on January 1, 1874. Since the Chairman of the Calcutta Corporation, Sir Stuart Hogg, had shown tremendous support for the project, it was decided that the market be named Sir Stuart Hogg Market. This was later shortened to Hogg Market and the native Bengalis referred to it as Hogg Shaheber Bajaar. But the earliest provisional name, New Market, remained most commonly used. For us in the late 20^th Century, this was the place where we bought some of our best clothing, watches and kids’ dresses. This place was the go-to place for everything and old timers would joke that you could even buy tiger’s milk at the new market. Today, this market looks pretty run down with not many people thronging the narrow lanes. Seems the love for malls and online purchases has run down the sheen of this market place. However, for us the attraction for this place till this day has been and remains a bite at Nahoum’s bakery.

The bakery was founded by Nahoum Israel Modecai, a Baghdadi Jew in 1902. Over the years this store has been passed down to his sons and their sons. For those who have met  some of these gentlemen, you might recall with amusement how they would sit comfortably on their chairs and handle cash without actually counting every penny. After the death of David Nahoum in 2013, people thought that the shop would close down but then it continued, thanks to his brother and dedicated and loyal staff who now manage the store. A picture of three generations of Nahoum adorns the store which has stood the test of time without making any change to its layout of decor. The wooden cash till is still as operational as it was over a century ago. Most importantly, even the food and the taste has not changed and so attracts people throughout the day. If you step in after 4 p.m. on a working day, all you can get to buy would be the bread, for the cakes, pastries and puffs would have been sold by then. In a city with the new malls and stores coming up all over, the Kolkata folks of all ages continue their love story with Nahoum’s.

Apart from all these historic places, no visit is ever complete without doing a round of places I call Hogwards…. breakfast at Flury’s, the continental lunch at the Indian Coffee House at New Town, evening snacks at a cousin’s place with fish cutlet, fish roll and fish finger, pan-Asian dinner at Peter Hu…yes Peter Hu and not Cat for once. Had sweets galore…innumerable rounds of fish once again at Mama Bari and, nowadays, a home-delivered special cuisine from my friend Anurita’s Kitchen has become a must for us on our visits to this city. This time we were treated to an exotic and authentic Sri Lankan plate by her. Finally, you end up with a big burp and on return home, the weighing scale shouts…Get off, fatso!!

SS