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Chunchura
| The historically
significant town of Chunchura is the district headquarters. There are several
places here that are worth a visit. One of these is the Fort Gustavus, built in
1628 by the Dutch on land given to them by the Nawab of Bengal. By the mid-17th
century, Armenian colonies also grew up in Chunchura.
A major tourist
attraction is the Octagonal Dutch Church built in 1768. A little to the west of
the Church is a Dutch cemetery. The remains of three East India Company barracks
can still be seen here.
Another important place is the Bandemataram
House on Joraghat, which was the residence of the great Bengali novelist and poet,
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, during his tenure as the District Magistrate of
Hooghly. This was where he had composed Bandemataram, the national song of India.
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Srirampur |
| Located on
the banks of the Hooghly, about 24 km. from Calcutta, Srirampur is famous for
having played a pivotal role in the Bengal Renaissance.
Once a
Danish settlement, Srirampur was named Fredricnagar after King Fredric VI of Denmark.
A Danish colony was set up here in 1616, but was later taken over by the East
India Company. Srirampur later became the centre of activity for English missionaries.
Dr. William Kerry set up the first Bengali press in Srirampur in 1799. In
1818, he commissioned the first botanical garden in India, which also houses the
Srirampur College in its compound. The college library has a rare collection of
Sanskrit, Pali and Tibetan manuscripts, as well as the Bible translated into more
than 40 Asian languages.
The Danish governor's palace now houses
the SDO court. The old Danish buildings here, the Roman Catholic Church, the College
of Textile Technology, and the cemetery are all reminiscent of the glorious past. |
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Pandua | | 18
km. north of Malda town, Pandua contains the third largest concentration of Muslim
monuments in Bengal. The interesting ones lie mostly along or around the ten-kilometre
length of the old brick-paved road that runs through the town.
Notable among the monuments is the splendid Adina Masjid, built in 1369 by Sultan
Sikander Shah. One of the largest mosques in India, it also typifies the most
developed mosque architecture of the period, the orthodox design being based on
the great 8th century mosque of Damascus. Carved basalt masonry from earlier Hindu
temples is used to support the 88 brick arches and 378 identical small domes.
The Eklakhi Mausoleum is the most elegant monument in Pandua. One of the
first square brick tombs in Bengal, with a carved Ganesh on the doorway, it is
the tomb of the convert son of a Hindu Raja.
Also worth a visit
is the Qutb Shahi Mosque, locally known as the Chhoto Sona Masjid, built to honour
saint Nur Qutb-ul-Alam. The ruins of his shrine are nearby, along with that of
Saint Hazrat Shah Jalal Tabrizi, collectively known as the Bari Darga. |
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Gour
| | Spread
across a landscape of lush paddy fields, 16 km. south of Malda town on the border
with Bangladesh, Gour came into prominence as the 7th century capital of King
Shashanka, and was the capital of ancient Bengal for several centuries.
There are several large tanks, notable among which is the Bara Sagar Dighi,
almost 1500 m. long, built by Ballal Sen in 1126. These, and the embankments of
the old city, which extend for several kilometres through the verdant rural landscape,
date back to the pre-Muslim period. Other attractions are mostly Muslim monuments
dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries. |
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