BackPhoto Essay: Keeping the faith
Steeped in history, Kolkata's Brabourne Road is home to various places of worship
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For the past few months, Anthony Khatchaturian, a social worker and businessman of Armenian descent, has been trying to persuade his friends in Kolkata to explore the city’s built heritage.
At least twice he has invited them to join him for a walk down what is still popularly known as Brabourne Road (now renamed Biplabi Trailokya Maharaj Sarani) to visit the various places of worship that stand along this arterial road in the city’s central business district.
But almost no one turned up.
“It seems no one is interested in figuring out why this neighbourhood was called by the British the parliament of religions," he says, standing in front of St Andrew’s Kirk (Scottish for church) at Dalhousie Square, at the southern end of Brabourne Road.
Fascinating stories abound, but this amateur tour guide doesn’t have an audience.
Inaugurated in 1818, this Scottish church was intended to have a steeple taller than the nearby St John’s Church built by the English, and that led to bickering between the city’s English and Scottish communities.
Interestingly, the architecture of the churches is similar; both were modelled on the St Martin-in-the-Fields church at Trafalgar Square in London.
The second stop on Khatchaturian’s walk illustrates the indifference towards these old structures: the abandoned Parsi Agiaree, or fire temple. The complex has been overrun by sellers of electrical goods.
What remains here, at 26 Ezra Street, is a flight of stairs leading to a derelict temple on a high plinth with Doric columns in front. The doors are locked; bits of the high ceiling are falling off.
Unless you’re looking for it, it is impossible to spot the temple in the midst of the bustling bazaar. Signage put up by the state government says it was built in 1839 by Rustomjee Cowasjee Banajee (1792-1852), a wealthy Parsi businessman who ran a shipping line and also built ships.
Though it has been recognized as a heritage property, and cannot be pulled down or altered, the fire temple is at the mercy of nature.
Locals say the trust that looked after it became defunct in the early 1980s. The employees of the fire temple then obtained a court order to rent out the property for their own and the Agiaree’s upkeep.
Just about 100m away stands the much better maintained Beth-El Synagogue. Dating back to 1856, it was the second synagogue to be built in Kolkata. Around 500m away are two more synagogues of similar vintage.
Interestingly, all three have through generations been looked after by Muslims from one extended family.
“When one of us retires, the Jewish community asks us to find a replacement from within our extended family," says Anwar Hossain, the current caretaker of the Maghen David Synagogue.
Opposite this synagogue and the Neveh Salome Synagogue stands the Cathedral Church of the Holy Rosary, or the Portuguese church, which was built in 1799 with a contribution from Joseph Barretto, a moneylender of Portuguese origin who lived nearby.
Tucked inside a congested lane, a stone’s throw away, is the Armenian Holy Church of Nazareth—said to be the oldest Christian place of worship in Kolkata. The current structure dates back to 1724. It has the oldest Christian grave in the city.
Brabourne Road also has two mosques, Ehsan Karim Masjid and Saifee Masjid, for Bohras. The Dawoodi Bohras are said to have arrived in Kolkata in the 1850s from Gujarat. They set up various businesses in Kolkata and built their first masjid on Brabourne Road in 1921. There are also several smaller places of worship for Jains and Hindus.
There also used to be a Greek church, built in 1780, but that has now been shifted to south Kolkata.
Why were so many places of worship built along one central arterial road?
“Because almost all overseas settlers plied their businesses from this neighbourhood, and many also lived here, they erected their places of worship along Brabourne Road," says historian Abhik Ray.
And Kolkatans were only too ready to allow this. Some landed families, such as that of Raja Naba Kissen Deb, were even generous enough to make land available from their estates for these places of worship.
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