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I am a “probashi” (expatriate) Bengali, having been born and brought up in Howrah. I stayed in the city till my marriage; after which I have been & still roaming pan India; having married a man in the Olive Green Uniform.
Very recently I made two back to back visits to my hometown and I was aghast to find the same old, step-motherly treatment meted out to this very ancient city. Still open drains overflow with filth and flies, still pedestrians hover on the main road due to lack of side-walk or footpath. This is 2023. The city deserves better than this at least.
Despite the fact that the state Secretariat has been shifted from the iconic red Writers’ Building to the blue and white multi-storeyed Nabanna in Howrah, there’s just no improvement in sight in this town. It will behoof one to think that the city has not had its Municipal Election till date, although 21/2 years have elapsed since its due date. Without a democratically elected municipal body and a civic head one can well imagine what jungle-raaj is going on in this once industrial belt.
Co-incidentally my house falls between two absolutely iconic establishments of Howrah city. One; The Indian Institute of Engineering, Science & Technology (formally known as Bengal Engineering College, Sibpur) and two, the very majestic Acharya Jagdish Chandra Bose Botanical Garden.
It pains me to see that what I had seen 40 years back, in my childhood, the same anarchy prevails even today. No proper bus stand, open vats, no infrastructural development. The only thing that has increased is the population and the cacophony around it. Cycles, E-rickshaws (a.k.a Totos), 2 wheelers, buses, cars all ply in the same narrow roads and people are blissfully adjusted to the inconvenience and danger. I was vexed to see vegetable vendors sitting right on the side of the Botanical Garden road, narrowing the main street for vehicular traffic even further. And all this, happening just a stone’s throw away from the building where Her Highness, the Chief Minister of West Bengal sits in her office.
And how can we ignore the Shalimar station, which is now an ancillary to the old Howrah Station?. It is every traveller’s nightmare. Why cannot it be developed like a modern railway station? Why cannot it have more systematic movement of vehicles to and fro from the station? Just because it is in Howrah and not on the other side of the Gangers?
Not only South Howrah, the situation in the central part of the city which has the Grand Trunk Road as its life line is horrendous. Anybody coming to this part of town for the first time would be forced to think how on earth can humans live amidst such chaos and filth. Literally garbage is spilling on the road from overflowing vats, petty vending shops have encroached the main G.T road which now looks like a shrivelled-up by-lane of some small town North Howrah which once boasted of historic places like Bally & the Belur Math have become a piteous sight. Anyone trying to travel from Howrah station to Belur Math by road will have to endure the hellish stretches of Pilkhana, Salkia and Liluah. It makes absolutely no sense to treat such a historically significant place with such indifference. Shame on the administration and Government for their pathetic indifference towards this city.
In my childhood whenever we interacted with friends and relatives from the big & happening City of Joy, Kolkata; and they discovered that we were from Howrah they would raise their eyebrows, squint their eyes a little and look at us askance. And some would actually burt out “Where is Howrah?”. We felt bad. We felt sad. We felt ashamed. Their mock ignorance and their deliberate pretence did hurt our self esteem. We always felt deprived; always felt lower than our big city counterparts although being just a few kilometre apart from each other; separated only by the pious Ganga river.
I am pained, ashamed and sorry to say, the same state exists even today. Nothing has changed. Only more chaos has been added. Does the holy river’s divide need to mean so much difference between its east and west bank? Alas! Yes! That is the truth. That has been the truth for ages and that will remain the truth in future if the same kind of Government apathy continues towards the city. How many centuries would it take for Mother Ganges to give equal status to both her daughters established on her left and right bank? I wish I could see it in my life time. But I know it for a fact that that’s only a never-to-be realised dream.
Did the holy river flowing between the two cities mean to have so much difference between its East and West banks?
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.
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