[BITList] A treasure lying uncared for at Lord Canning's house

[John Feltham]

Begin forwarded message:


Thursday, Aug 12, 2004
http://www.hindu.com/2004/08/12/stories/2004081208020300.htm

A treasure lying uncared for at Lord Canning's house

CANNING (WEST BENGAL), AUG. 11. In what could be
a fortune for antique hunters, a treasure trove of historical
artefacts worth crores lie buried inside the former residence
of British India's last Governor-General and first Viceroy
Lord Canning, but now a plaster-flaking ruin waiting to
come crumbling down any day.

Imported brass binoculars manufactured by Lawrence and
Mayo, London, compasses, British carved furniture and
Belgian glass dressing tables of the vice-royalty are strewn
across huge damp rooms - 22 of them - in the two-storey
solitary building on the banks of river Bidyadhari in West
Bengal's South 24 Parganas district.

The antiques and Lord Canning's 120-year-old riverside
residence is currently owned and inhabited by the descendants
of J.M. Ghosh, its caretaker who bought the building in
1962 from Mumbai-based J.M. Datiyala-R.C. Cooper,
who in turn had received it in `zamindari' from the Port
Canning Land Investment, Reclamation and Dock Co Ltd.

Falling on bad days, Ghosh's son Joydeb wants to sell
off the valuables "of no earthly use to me or my family"
as also the building on 1.5 acres, whose upper floor the
family vacated recently when two rickety beams gave away.

The Sundarban Tiger Reserve Project has rented five
rooms for a godown and the Ghosh family lives in two
others. The rest of the 15 rooms remain locked with
Ghosh unwilling to entertain queries by inquisitive locals.
"They have no idea what testimony these relics bear,"
says the man tired of `pestering' by inquisitive people
and small-time antique dealers.

Though the British envisaged Canning as a parallel port
to Calcutta in 1853 and set up a Port Office in the building,
the project never became a reality as river Matla, of which
Bidyadhari is a tributary, became heavily silted making
navigation almost impossible.

"However, many instruments used for land and river survey
are still lying in huge mahogany almirahs upstairs," Ghosh
says leading the way up to the first floor negotiating poorly
lit, but magestic, wooden stairs. Some of the rare items have
found their way into the household for daily use.

A five-legged 11-feet convertible conference table makes
for the family's knick-knack corner in the sitting room downstairs
with utensils and items of everyday use piled up, while
carved pentagonal side-tables are strewn across the
two-room residential area.

Ghosh says he was approached by the Sahara India
group as well as actor-hotelier Mithun Chakraborty to
buy the dilapidated house to turn it into a heritage hotel.
But the man clinging on to the remains of a glorious
past did not relent.

"We wanted an arrangement where the basic structure
of the facade would remain the same and not be tampered
with. We also want a just compensation," he says.

Ghosh's wife looks at it differently. "When I got married,
I had no clue about the historical importance of this place.
Today, though I live in the lap of history, this enormous
property is meaningless if all our earnings go into its
maintenance."

The family claims to be spending over Rs. 15,000 annually
to keep the building in `some basic shape'. All this despite
Ghosh running a family of five and funding the education
of his two children.

Neighbours say the riverside property of the family included
another Victorian building, which the family dismantled to
sell off the good quality bricks at a `very good price', but
Joydeb would rather not discuss the issue.

Riverside accounts also speak of a tunnel connecting Lord
Canning House to the other building, but Ghosh says the
port authorities had just dug up a trench surrounding the
house to prevent floodwaters from swamping the premises.

Ruing the poor condition of Lord Canning House and its
artefacts, Sundarban Tiger Reserve Director P. Vyas says
Canning, once considered the `Gateway to Sundarbans',
has been relegated to a poor second as an approach route
to the mangrove tigerland. "With launches not operational
for more than 12 hours out of 24 and commerce not picking
up, Gosaba has become the new hub of activities in Sundarbans.
There has hardly been much effort to save Canning or its
rich historical legacy," he regrets.



ooroo

Bad typists of the word, untie.