Mahishadal Rajbari Old Photo

 

 

The history of the Mahishadal Rajbari is a long and interesting one. Birnarayan Roy Chowdhury of the Tamralipta Raj family was the first to settle here. The village known today as Geonkhali, located in the Mahishadal block, was then known by its original name, “Jiban Khali”. Sometime in the 16^th century, Birnarayan’s descendant Kalyan Roy Chowdhury, who was the zamindar, was found to be defaulting in revenue payments. Emperor Akbar had him removed, and replaced him with the young Janarddan Upadhayay who had come to this part of the country from what is present day Uttar Pradesh. The Upadhyays were granted the title Raja and ran the Zamindari well for the next four generations. However when Anandalal Upadhyaya died in 1804 without a male heir, the zamindari passed to his daughter’s son, Raja Guruprasad Garg. The Gargs remained the zamindars of the area, contributing substantially to the social welfare of the area until independence and the abolition of the zamindari system.

Mahishadal is a least known tourist place, of some historical significance, situated in Haldia subdivision of Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal. It is only three and a half hour drive from Kolkata. Known for its ancient temples and monuments built during 16th century, it is equally appealing to the nature enthusiasts, as the place is dotted with palm trees, and the small and large ponds adds to the scenic beauty. This calm and serene place makes an excellent weekend getaway.
        
Main attraction of Mahisadal is the "Rajbari". In the 16th century AD, a north Indian businessman, Janardhan Upadhyay Garg, bought a big estate and built a mansion for the purpose of Zamindari. In the 18th century, during the days of Rani Janaki Devi, this mansion reached its zenith of glory and a new palace was built adjacent to it, which are together known as the Mahishadal Rajbari. According to the locals, Rani Janki devi was a staunch anti-British advocate. And this brought about the downfall of the regime. The old mansion is in ruins but the new palace is well maintained and serves as a museum. It is a treasure house of 16th to 18th century old collectives, beautiful paintings, awe inspiring ornate furniture, medals, manuscripts, photographs, artilleries, stuffed deer, tigers, bison and other hunted animals and the weapons used for hunting.     

Many a period drama has been shot in this palace, as the place is a usual destination for the film-makers, both old and new.

 In the vicinity of the Rajbari, are two renowned temples built by Rani Janki Devi. Gopaljiew Temple, dedicated to Lord Sri Krishna and Ramjiew Temple, which houses the idols of Sri Ram, Sita and Hanuman. All the original idols were stolen and so, have been replaced by brass replicas of each of the original deities.         

On the banks of scenic Rupnarayan river, is situated the Natshal temple where Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa started the Ramkrishna movement. The Archeological Survey of India has excavated historic artifacts older than Indus Valley and Harappan Civilization in this area. 

 

Nimtita Rajbari, Mushidabad, West Bengal

Real life has imitated reel life. The Nimtita Rajbari, immortalised by Satyajit Ray in Jalsaghar, is following the script of the award-winning movie based on a novel by Tarashankar Bandopadhyay. It is agonisingly reducing itself to rubble.
This 170-year-old grand palace, an architectural marvel in its time, was portrayed as a crumbling mansion in the film shot 55 summers ago. In this classic, the last in the line of rich zamindars of the fictional 'Kirtipur Raj' estate, Biswambhar Roy, leads a lonely life and, unable to come to terms with reality and his decaying surroundings, gallops to death on his horse.
In real life, the palace, or most of it, has already crumbled. And Sabita Roy Choudhury, the last in the line of descendants of Satyanarayan Roy Choudhury who built the palace, passed away two years ago, leaving behind, like Biswambhar, two faithful servants. The decay has only accelerated after her death. Only the rear portions remain standing today, and of the main palace, only the grand fa?ade that faces the Ganga stands and serves as a sad reminder of what was once a majestic combination of Greek, Victorian and Mughal architectural styles.
As shown in the movie, Nimtita Rajbari used to host musical soirees and was famed for its opulence. The Roy Choudhury clan too was known for its extravagant lifestyle. "My father used to tell me stories of the magnificent feasts, the song and dance performances by artistes from Lucknow and other parts of the country, the profligacy of the occupants of the palace and their passion for horses, elephants and the finer things of life. The Durga Puja at Nimtita Rajbari was famous in this region for its grandness and thousands of people would be fed daily during the pujas, " recalls Sanatan Patra, 68, a farmer who lives in a mud-and-thatched roof hut a couple of hundred metres from the rajbari (palace).
TOI-Crest learnt by piecing together the accounts of local residents that the decline of the mansion commenced in the third decade of the last century when the Ganga, which used to flow about four kilometers away, started changing course. It eroded major portions of the estate, a fact that is incorporated in the plot of Jalsaghar. Biswambhar Roy rues the crumbling of large parts of his estate due to erosion.
Kulashankar Roy, 62, recalls his father Gouripada witnessing the havoc wreaked by the river. "It started changing course and moving westwards from the early 1920s and in two decades, had gobbled up almost 40 per cent of the Nimtita estate, all of it rich farmlands and mango orchards. During this period, it moved about 2. 5 kilometres west.
"My father grew up in Chohapara village, part of the Nimtita estate, that was about three kilometres away from the rajbari. But in the early 1930s, the river gobbled up the village and all families had to relocate. The zamindars gave my dad's family a plot of land adjacent to the palace where we stay now, " says Kulashankar, a landless farmer.
When Ray shot the movie, the Ganga used to flow about a kilometre east of Nimtita Rajbari. Today, it flows just a couple of hundred metres away. "The erosion has slowed down, but not stopped. Every year, the river moves a few metres west towards the palace. I think that in 10 years, it will wash away the palace front, " says Achala Singha, 50, a domestic help who lives in the rear portion of the degenerating mansion.
But even without the erosion, the lights were slowly fading in the mansion, as they did in the movie. "We have heard that the ancestors of Ranima (as Sabita Roy Choudhury used to be addressed) were spendthrifts and started living beyond their means.
They used to spend a lot on organising song and dance performances. Even the legendary Gauhar Jaan, and her mother Malka Jaan before her, performed many times at this palace. There were nearly a hundred full-time servants here, " says Singha.
The jalsaghar or music room in the eponymous movie was actually one of the private living rooms on the first floor of the palace. Only its walls remain - the floor and roof of this portion of the palace have long caved in. The wide first floor balcony along the entire length of the palace fa?ade where Biswambhar used to laze around and listen to music recitals while pulling on his hookah has also caved in. The grand staircase leading to the first floor has collapsed. So has the terrace where Biswambhar used to sit and bemoan the plight of his mansion. Only the outer shell of this portion of the palace - where almost the entire movie was shot - remains.
The first floor room in the southwestern portion of the palace where Satyajit Ray stayed during the shoot in 1957 is in a precarious state and will cave in any day. "It stays locked and no one dares to go to that portion of the mansion. The rooms where Chhabi Biswas (who gave a stellar performance as Biswambhar) and other members of the cast and crew stayed also remain locked and are equally precarious, " says Singha.
Sabita Roy Choudhury's sons and their cousins from another branch of the family live in Kolkata and other parts of the country. They come to Nimtita once a year during the Durga Pujas. This is just about the only thing about Nimtita Rajbari that remains unchanged. Of course, the pomp and grandeur of the celebrations is considerably reduced. The temple is also the only portion of the palace that seems in no danger of collapsing, at least not yet.

Alai Darwaza Qutub complex 1870 & Present Photo

The Alai Darwaza is a magnificent gateway built by Ala-ud-din Khilji of the Delhi Sultanate, having exquisite inlaid marble decorations and latticed stone screens. It highlights the remarkable artisanship of Turkish and local artisans who worked on it. The Alai Darwaza was an important part of the project undertaken by Ala-ud-din Khilji in his quest to decorate the Qutab complex. 

The Qutab Minar and the various monuments within the Qutab complex, including the Alai Darwaza, belong to the period of the Delhi Sultanate (1191–1526). The Alai Darwaza represents a new style of architecture, popularly referred to as the Indo-Islamic style of architecture. The Indo-Islamic style is neither a local variant of Islamic art, nor a modification of Hindu art, but it is an assimilation of both the styles, though not always in an equal degree. It is so because each region in India has its own form of Indo-Islamic architecture, which varies from place to place and there is no standardization. On the other hand, Islamic art itself was a composite style, which had various Muslims influences—Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. 

This assimilation of exotic and indigenous architectural styles was possible due to a variety of factors: the Muslim rulers had to use, in most cases, Indian craftsmen and sculptors who were schooled in their own art traditions. Though both the Indian and Islamic styles have their own distinctive features, some common characteristics made fusion and adaptation easy. Both the styles favor ornamentation and buildings of both styles are marked by the presence of an open court encompassed by chambers or colonnades.

The Qutab Minar, the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque, and the tomb of Iltutmish, which were constructed by different rulers of the Slave dynasty (1193–1290), heralded the birth of Indo-Islamic architecture. Of these monuments, the Qutab Minar is a tower symbolizing the victory of the first Muslim rulers of India over the indigenous people. This fluted tower with floral patterns and Qur’anic inscriptions around in a flowing calligraphic style was the first monument of the Indo-Islamic style of architecture. The Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque was the first mosque to be built in India and is made up of the remnants of 27 Hindu and Jain temples, broken down by the Muslim rulers of the Delhi Sultanate. It is also a representation of Muslim power. The tomb of Iltutmish was the first Islamic tomb to be built in India. As the concept of a domed tomb was new to the indigenous craftsmen, the resultant structural flaws in the building let to the collapse of the dome—the first one to have been built in India. Thus, one can say that the monuments belonging to the Slave dynasty were the first attempt to combine two cultures in the field of architecture. 

The Alai Darwaza is a perfect specimen of architecture belonging to the period of the Delhi Sultanate. It was built in 1311, by Ala-ud-din-Khilji, of the Khilji dynasty (which ruled the Delhi Sultanate from AD 1290 to AD 1316). The Alai Darwaza was a part of Ala-ud-din-Khilji’s extension of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque. It was one of the four grand gateways; the other three could not be completed because of the death of Ala-ud-din in AD 1316. 

The main structure of the Alai Darwaza consists of a single hall 34½ feet on the inside and 56½ feet on the outside. The domed ceiling rises to a height of 47 feet. The three doorways on the east, west, and south are lofty pointed arches, in the shape of a horseshoe, which rise above the flanking side bays. The entrance to the north is of an indigenous character, as its arch is semi-circular in shape. The overall outlook and proportions of the Alai Darwaza is pleasing to the eye. The recessed corner arches of the attractive horseshoe forms, supporting a simple spherical dome on top of the square chamber, are an especially happy solution to the perpetual problem of supporting a good dome. It would be well worth noting that the earlier attempts at raising the dome, particularly the tomb of Iltutmish, had been unsuccessful. The dome of the Alai Darwaza, in this respect, is a notable achievement. 

The dome was constructed on highly scientific principles. A series of squinches of pointed shape, one recessed within the other, in the upper section of each angle of the hall, changes the square into an octagon, and then the octagon into the circle of the dome with an interweaving sixteen-sided shaft formed by a bracket at each end of the octagon. With use of complex geometric calculations, the load of the dome has been gracefully conveyed to the ground—from the circle to the sixteen-sided shaft, from the latter to the octagon and then onto the four walls of the square chamber. The plinth on each side is beautifully carved with floral and geometric patterns in both white marble and red sandstone, creating a superb polychrome effect. Perforated latticework window screens (jali) are set in the recessed windows on both sides of the entrances. These marble screens set off the monotony of the vertical lines of calligraphic ornamentation. The most charming aspect of surface decoration is the lace-like interweaving of floral tendrils, repeated with a flawless symmetry on all the three entrances, elegantly designed and perfectly built. 

The northern entrance is semi-circular with a shallow trefoil in its outline. The façade is elaborately ornamented in sensuous carving and patterns, characteristic of the pre-Turkish days (the first Muslim rulers of India came from Turkey). The Alai Darwaza also shows the influence of Seljuk art. The Seljuks had started fleeing Western Asia after Mongol invasions in the 12th century AD and had reached Delhi for protection. The ‘spear-headed’ embellishment on the three entrances is of particular importance in this regard. In addition, the surface ornamentation has been done with an eye for lavishness and detail. 

Though the Alai Darwaza stands isolated at the southern end of the Qutab complex, with the Qutab Minar behind it, it appears a fitting part of the grand structures of the Delhi Sultanate.