VICTORIA COLLEGE, NARAIL

 

A decaying masterpiece of educational development, bearing testament to the endeavours of the Raj to match the ambitions of the young Bengalis, as well as their own need for clerks! And still in use.

The neoclassical centrepiece, which includes the remnants of a raked lecture theatre of which many more modern establishments would be proud, is probably in terminal decay. Experience tells us that when we hear of plans for restoration the finished work is unlikely to bear much resemblance to the original.

Curiously, the windows of one of the buildings are shaped in an unusual design similar to some seen in the palace at Puthia.

It appears there may be fruitful potential in a study to identify the architects and builders responsible for the large number of neoclassical buildings in Bangladesh..it would be unsurprising to find that there are many constructions of common origin.

Well worth a visit for any student of architecture in the mid to late 19th Century in Bangladesh.

MUKTAGACHA PALACE. MYMENSINGH. 500 YEARS OF CULTURE

Clues to longevity of the family tradition abound in Muktadgacha Palace, which lies 10 miles to the west of Mymensingh town.

From the , disappeared, magnetic ball that once toped a palace dome as a lightening conductor, through the Japanese designed ‘air conditioned’ accommodation in the courtyard, to the French built revolving stage in the small theatre (no prizes for guessing at which famous Parisian night club the inspiration for that came from!), the clues are all there.

Most Zaminders in the Bangladesh of the ‘British time’, were new rich; grocers, salt merchants, agricultural traders or farmers, who acquired the tax farming rights to some district, and in the time honoured tradition of such people in Britain before Commonwealth, acquired with those rights, a lavish lifestyle, reflected particularly in their residences. Their tenure, however, rarely lasted more than three generations, and aristocratic development in Britain has suggested that any family that  survives the tradition of ‘rags to rags in three generations’, become a family of culture and learning, great patrons of arts and sciences. Such influences often suggest a longevity of wealth and substance.

I suppose at least you can say for such new rich in India, they owed their position to money, rather than becoming favourites at court, as was often the case in Britain.

Muktagacha was probably originally built in the first half of the 16th Century, and there are clear signs of Mughal period influence in some of the older structures.

A complex, but apparently continuous link runs through subsequent holders of office and rank, to 1947, when the adopted son of the last of the great Zaminders, Maharajah Sashi Kanta Acharya Chaudhury, left in a hurry, following partition.

From the cells, said by a guide with, perhaps, as much imagination as history, to be used to imprison the parents of about to be wed girls who failed to recognise a custom known in Europe as ‘Droit de Seigneur’ as a right of the Zaminder, to the ’99 Elephant Court’, which now houses rather more armed police, and from the remains of the foot lit revolving stage for dancing girls to the curious ‘air conditioned’ structure that dominates the middle court, there is much to intrigue and fascinate.

Architecturally, it is not hard to identify the period of influences, and in at least one case, the date of construction, since a steel girder bears the name of Frodingham, also note at Narail Landing Place.

Earthquake damage, almost certainly from 1897, is also in evidence, although it appears that the greater part of the structure survived intact.

And in the environs outside, and equal wealth of attractions. 5, maybe 6, temples, including the 16th centre originated Shiva Temple, with no less than three intact Shiva Lingams in black marble, of three different sizes.

Few historic sites in Bangladesh, except perhaps, the extraordinary Natore Rajbari..interestingly, the home of another aristocratic survivor from Mughal to Raj period... have as much to excite and inform as this outstanding attraction.

THE SCOTTISH CONNECTION IN BANGLADESH

The earliest Scots to reach the lands of Bangladesh may have arrived as early as the 16th Century. Across the Indian subcontinent European mercenaries played a great part in local wars between various autonomous states.
Not the least of the reasons that Scots were early travellers, selling their unquestionable courage and skills were not only the poverty of the country, but the almost unending civil wars, most with religious origins, in which so many accomplished soldiers found themselves on the losing side and forced into exile.
That became even more so following the 1745 rebellion, which devastated the Highland region and made fugitives of so many.
It is , therefore, unsurprising that so many of the servants of the East India Company, who, following the Battle of Plassey in 1757, acquired the control of Bengal, which included the lands that are now Bangladesh, and developed the basis of two hundred years of Empire in India.

A lasting monument to the Scottish connection can be found in the name of the most popular seaside resort in Bangladesh. Captain Hiram Cox, whose name is immortalised in Cox’s Bazar, was almost certainly a Scot, probably from Inverness, ‘the Capital of the Highlands’

What is certain is that he married there, and his wife was probably the Great Grand daughter of the 8th Lord Lovat, the last man executed, for his part in that rebellion, on Tower Green in the Tower of London, the scene of so many famous, and infamous executions throughout its history.

But the evidence of the Scottish connections is far greater than that. In both of the great industries of Tea, and of Jute, the Scottish connections are very close, and the mortal remains of , perhaps, hundreds of exiled Scots fill the burial grounds of Sylhet, and the great cities of the Raj. Even the burial grounds near the great railway junctions have many monuments that bear the names that are distinctively Scots.

IRON HOUSE: ALEXANDER’S CASTLE, MYMENSINGH

In the grounds of Mymensingh Rajbari, constructed by the last Maharajah, Sashi Kanta Acharya Chaudhury, whose adopted son proved to be the last of the great Zaminders of a long line, stands an extraordinary piece of iron construction, known by some as Alexander’s Castle. Named for one of its early visitors, Grand Duke Boris, of the, Romanov, Russian Royal household, it also hosted visits from such distinguished guests as Lord Curzon, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose (the latter two visitors might suggest that the Zaminders played a part in their own demise!).

 

A simple wooden bungalow, that seems to owe a great deal to the classic design of Tea Garden bungalows,constructed on a large masonry plinth, and built of wood on an interesting frame work of steel.

 

The height of the plinth presumably reflected the risk from flooding of the Brahmaputra River that flows about 500 yards in front, and which it overlooked, probably across lawns that ran to the river bank.

Its high, sloping roof, is of corrugated iron, which in monsoon rains must have been rather noisy!

At each corner is a furnace and chimney; winter weather can be cool thereabouts, and guest probably enjoyed hot water from them. And either side the long veranda at the front, stand Greek statue reproductions of the Graces; from the Muktagacha Palace’s revolving stage it isn’t hard to imagine the Maharajah’s interest in such decoration!

A disused and overgrown walled garden stands behind the building, with arches and gateways which suggest past glories.

The use of iron in construction was clearly much favoured by the Maharajah, an honorific Royal title that was unusually high status under the Raj, as is evidenced by construction work in the palace at Muktagacha, where girders from North East UK are visible. But its use in this extraordinary construction, now used as a library by the college in whose grounds it now stands is to an unusual degree, and with a rare level of visibility.
An interesting, and  rare insight into technological, cultural, social and even political life of the late nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century that this building represents.