Ahiritola

Ahiritola, a small hamlet of North Calcutta. In fact, I accidently landed on the jetty of Ahiritola when randomly roaming around various launch routes of Hoogli. I wanted to go to Sovabazar and by asking someone standing nearby, jumped inside a launch at Howrah. The launch eventually took me to Ahiritola instead of Sovabazar.

The moment I landed on the jetty, I developed a strange feeling as if I am visiting the REAL Calcutta. The “mahual” the old buildings and homes and the structures in general, gave me some strange feeling! I found it a suburb full of typical old Begali culture. Even the faces nay the whole personalities of the men and women appeared typical Bengali. Needless to mention, I clicked many photographs there. When I narrated my experience of Ahiritola to my friends in the late evening, they told me that, that is the real old Calcutta and the city started developing from that area on! So, I was not wrong!

And now, yesterday, I read that the icon of Bengali personality in my mind, Mahanayak Uttam Kumar, was born on 3^rd September 1926, in Ahiritola at the home of his maternal uncle when his own ancestral home was in Bhowanipore!