Tucked Into The Bylanes: Conserving The ‘Messbaris’ Of Yesteryear Kolkata

Detective Byomkesh Bakshi, a household name in Bengali families, lived in one of the ‘messbaris’ or boarding houses of Kolkata, and so did his creator, Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay, the famous detective fiction writer from Bengal. In fact, some of the most prominent characters of Bengali pop culture lived in the ‘messbaris’ of North Kolkata, and it is not before long that you might have a tête-à-tête with their shadows if you happen to visit one such ‘messbari’.

For those of you who are wondering, ‘messbaris’ were the many, hugely popular boarding houses that sprang up all around Kolkata’s College Street in the 19th and mid-20th centuries, and were similar to today’s working men’s hostels. By the early 1900s, they were housing and feeding thousands of young men who had come to the big city in search of jobs and education.

The ‘Messbari Project’ by Heritage Walk Calcutta, led by Dr Tathagata Neogi (Doctorate in archaeology, University of Exeter) and his wife, Chelsea McGill, is one such attempt to do so. Most, if not all, of the ‘messbaris’ of Kolkata, have succumbed to the ravages of time, and become rundown and decrepit. This has eventually also erased the history associated with them as well. The Messbari Project’s aim is to rekindle an interest in these age-old structures which carry the legacy of the rich past of the city. They aim to document the age-old urban hostels of Kolkata in order to preserve a tradition that has found its way to innumerable pop culture representations in Bengal through the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Bengali cult-classic comedy film, Shaare Chuattor (1953), presents an ensemble cast of stalwart actors, including ‘mahanayak’, Uttam Kumar, all huddled under one roof – the Annapurna Boarding House. Other than that, a range of Bengali fiction, including Premendra Mitra’ s Ghana Da series, Narayan Gangopadhyay’s Ektala, Rajsekhar Basu’s Birinchibaba, and many others are centred around different ‘messbaris’ of Kolkata.

Some of the famous ‘messbaris’ include Presidency Boarding House on Mahatma Gandhi Road, which has been home to legendary Bengali fiction writers like Saradindu Bandopadhyay and Jibananda Das, the Khetra Kuthi Mess on Muktaram Babu Street, which has been home to writer and revolutionary, Shibram Chakraborty, and Annapurna Boarding House, amongst others.

Besides being a familiar trope in Bengali pop culture, the ‘messbaris’ also became the space for shaping a new narrative for the city, which at that time had become an industrial hub attracting labour from all corners of rural Bengal. It was in fact, the crux around which the middle-class sensibility of yesteryear Kolkata grew and spilled over into its lanes and bylanes.

You can check out the ‘Messbari Project’ here.

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