Publication: The Times Of India Kolkata;Date: Oct 30, 2011;Section: Times City;Page: 2

VILLAGE KOLIKATA
Not too far from the capital of Bengal, there exists a village called Kolikata. Away from the bustle of
the city, life goes on here at its own slow pace, reports ACHINTYARUP RAY

Around the same time that Job Charnock got off his vessel at a low swampy village of scattered huts to set up the Bengal headquarters of the Honourable East India Company there,
50 kilometres away, at another village, one Jagannath Roy received some land from the Maharaja of Burdwan for his household deity. The rst village was on the banks of the Hooghly
and the second one was by the river Damodar. And while the former grew up to become the second city of the Empire, the latter remained unknown. The world never really came to know
about this small hamlet called Kolkata or Kolikata, to be precise.

The village now in Howrah district became a subject of discussion among the pundits for the rst time in 1938, when national professor Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay wrote an
article in the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad Patrika on the name of the city of Kolkata or Kolikata. The professor was trying to look for the origin of the name. For that, the rst thing he did
was to nd out if there was any other place in the (undivided) Bengal by this name. And there actually was. Not one, but two villages named Kolkata one under the Lohajung thana of
Dhaka and the other under the Amta thana of Howrah. He started gathering information about the places and found one thing in common between Kolikata, the capital of Bengal, and
the village by the Damodar in Howrah. In both the places once thrived the small industry of making lime (koli) by burning snail shells (kata).

There still exist a few chunari families in village Kolikata, whose business till two decades ago was making lime. But not any more, said Shankar Das Chunari, a 55-year-old resident of
the village. Shankar used to help his father burn snail shells when he was a teenager. Now we do odd jobs, like pulling rickshaw vans, for a living. Some of us work as land labourers and
sharecroppers, he said, standing near the ruins of the nilkuthi (indigo factory).

Its indeed a strange experience to be in a village that shares its name with a megapolis. Away from the hustle and bustle of the city, life here goes on at its own slow pace with a
few small shops, a marketplace, remains of a nilkuthi, a small building of Kolikata Prathamik Vidyalay, a couple of village clubs, some old temples and of course, the river.

The earliest record that can be found with the name of the village as Kolikata is the sanad (deed) of Burdwans Maharaja Krishnaram, whereby he gave some land to Jagannath Roy for
the latters family deity. It was dated 1091 Bangabda (1684 AD). Jagannath was the son of Ramakrishna Kavichandra, who had penned Shivayan Kavya. Two more old deeds one
dated 1169 Bangabda (1762 AD) and the other dated 1185 Bangabda (1778 AD) could be found till a few years ago with signatures of Kshudiram Deyashi and Atmaram Banik
respectively, both of whom were residents of village Kolikata.

The 1,500 residents of this village affectionately call it Chhoto Kolkata (little Kolkata) in comparison to the metropolis. (Although settlement records show the name of the mouza
as Kolikata. JL No. 152.) The locals also love to name different spots of the village after places of the city. So, the marketplace has been named

Bowbazar and an open eld near the Gorhdanga mound is called Gorher Math (named after Kolkata Maidan). And see, this is Nimtala, our burning ghat, shows villager Gobindo, not
without some pride. The village already had a Dharmatala the place near the old temple of Lord Dharma.

The Dharma temple is quite old. It was built in 1797 (1204 Bangabda). According to the inscription above the temple gate, Gayaram Deyasi of village Kolikata built this temple and the
mason

was Abhaycharan Mistry of village Thole. There is another ancient temple nearby, which is older than this, but nobody knows today for which deity it had been built.

The 95.55-hectare village is divided into four neighbourhoods Mondal Para, Chunari Para, Purba Deyashi Para and Paschim Deyashi Para.

Today, people dont know about our village, but it was once an important centre of lime manufacture and trade, says Tapan Mondal, who runs an NGO called Agragati. And the boats
which were used by traders of nearby Betai port were owned mostly by the Majhis of Kolkata village. Boat making was also an important industry here. People knew this place for its
lime and boats, he adds.

But not anymore. Today, Kolkata is just like any other village small, nondescript and forgotten by the world outside.

(Above) A village club, called Kolikata Netaji Sangha; (left) the remains of an old indigo factory; (bottom) river Damodar flows by the village
(Above) The 214-year-old Dharma temple at Kolkata; (right) the building of Kolikata Prathamik Vidyalay