Future of the Past

ভূতের ভবিষ্যত   ( Future of  the Past )

Broaden your vision deepen your root....

   -  Sri Sri ravishankar

Imagine a day, you have started with a great English breakfast with few English friends from Plymouth, UK, then go to an Armenian Church to meet some of your friends over there. After that you are scheduled to meet some French officials and have lunch with them, you can’t wait to rejuvenate your taste buds with those French dishes and of course original French wines, but on the way to meet them, some Greek gentlemen, traveling with you on the same boat, offered some cheese, you can’t refuse their offer of some original Geek Cheese, meanwhile another Persian traveler offered some dry fruits of their traditional preparation, which just went fabulous with the Greek cheese, this not even the Italian sailor could deny.  Afternoon you spend with some Dutch friends playing cards on Beer which is locally made with Dutch skill. But you can’t stay long over there as you have to meet a Danish family before the sunset but it didn’t take time to forget the Dutch beer when Danish cookies are offered on a nice plate brought from China. Alas you couldn’t stay there for long either, you have an appointment with some Indian business men to check their latest consignment of quilts and some silk garments then accompany them to a local temple. The brass drums and a silver statue of Shiva of the temple was gifted by the Dutch Royalty. You simply can’t deny the sweet name jalbhara ( local specialty ) they distribute after worship. Finally have a traditional Bengali dinner with them. But for you, this is yet to call it a day, as you wanted to meet some Portuguese sailors to ensure the consignment of Quilt and Garment to be loaded in the Ship which will leave early next week for Europe, before you go back to your own den. Doesn’t it sound like an ultimate day of life for a true Global Citizen ? What if for doing all these activities you didn’t have to travel more than 30 kilometers, yep, it would be an ideal global village of twenty first century. Now put this ‘day of a life’  with a backdrop of anyplace on the world but 400 years  back in time. You must be kidding! what an wild imagination. Nope dear, it was reality for a little known place on earth at 300-400 years back ! From unknown it raised again disappeared into almost unknown. Today I’ll talk about that place.

People say you cannot change the history, but I think history is ever changing. When we talk about history, we talk about some past events which interest to present, knowing which event may help us to sail in present. As today’s demand is ever changing, what event of past we celebrate today in name of history alters with the passing of time. Even how people desperately try to classify good or bad in universal context, changes with time. So what society values today will not be same tomorrow. Naturally what story appeals today’s value system or in what light the story is being presented get changed with the flow of time, so the history really metamorphose.

History, what we cover in our academics have two major influences, first effort  is knowing those stories from the past whatever being celebrated globally today and second drive comes from a sentimental feeling, where you live, you must know what happen on that piece of land over the period of time from the recorded history. But that also highly filtered and altered by the thought what is good to know, judged by the state and also accepted by today’s celebrated social values. Some stories are made classified or altered or downplayed for the interest of the state or which will go against social dogma. And this is universally true.

But an important element which is missing in the syllabus of school history is what lesson you should know to live in today’s world and near future, keeping in mind how the world is shaping around us today.

Because of this gap History as a subject losses connection with life very easily and most of time cannot appeal today’s young mind, nor contributes to their character building to prepare themselves for tomorrow. As this element is ever changing so study of history or study of past must be ever-changing unless there is no future of the past.

The history of the piece of land, I’ll try to portrayed here carries some values in that connection. So I hope it will be worth to cultivate anywhere in the context of global village, in which direction we are so desperate to take our world into.

Probably we all can provide hundreds of stories with reference from our school history book  of our modern educational system, to support how backward, superstitious, dark Indian society was before the outside influences. But I am sure not many of us heard about the following story.

This is a story of a Shrutidhar Pandit, the people who can remember any sound without even knowing the meaning. One very early morning, when Pandit was taking his regular bath in the river Hoogly, he noticed two Englishman were having a strong and loud argument on a boat, floating on the river. Suddenly one hits other hard and throw him out of the boat who eventually drowns . When a case was filled in local British court as an evidence same Pandit was called and told to describe what happened through an interpreter. Then stunning everybody, that poor Pandit described the conversation between two Englishmen in English. Then it was asked to him without knowing English how he can narrate their conversation in English. The answer was something beyond the imagination of western world. He had gone through traditional learning process for the Bramhin kids of that time, where high value used to be given on, remembering sound of scriptures, To be expert in traditional learning system you need to be Shrutidhar, remember the sounds from hearing, realizing the scripture will follow eventually over time, that was the idea. He was so good in that skill from his educational process, he could narrate the entire conversation which took place in English from the sounds arrived to his ear without knowing single word of English. I don’t know how many of us know this story, even if we know, we think it’s a myth. May be its true may be its not but this also a piece of history but has no importance in my educational system so not included in our syllabus.

But the reason why the history of the same place where it took place is important, is not for the celebrating quality of  remembering words from sound, but for a different reason.  Cultivating Shrutidhar quality won’t help much in today’s world either, so we can forget this story. But something which absolutely has a need of time with the impact of Globalization, Whether Globalization is good or bad, it is not waiting for our personal judgment. It is not even knocking our door, its already inside of our home, which is bringing the influences from every possible culture to our very personal life, I don’t think our academics prepared ourselves for this, how much we should allow globalization to occupy our life and where we should draw the boundary ? what should be our response and interaction in this global village ? that can be addressed from the lessons learned in 400 years old sequence of events took place on this piece of land. 

The 400 year old history, I’ll briefly touch here is about a small place with in a 50 kilometer circle by the side of Bhagirathi or Hoogly river in Ganges delta of India. Most of  the stages, where this unparalleled historic events took place now fall in a district name Hoogly in modern political map. Hooghly is the silent spectator and witness of many ups and downs, upheavals through the river bank and settlements for trade and power. A true world trade center in the era of  'Local Economy'. It may be said historically Hooghly is one of the most interesting districts in the province of Bengal, indeed in the whole of India. Here within the space of a few miles of river bank, Portuguese, Armenians, English, Dutch, French, Danes, Belgians, Prussians, Austrians, Germans and Flemings compete with each other for trade, formed settlements. The battle for trade and power were fought on this river Hooghly by most of the European nations and converted the swampy little known corner of the country into a center of all attentions. The Portuguese at Bandel, the Dutch at Chinsurah, the French at Chandernagor, the Danes at Sreerampore and the English at Calcutta left their physical mark in these settlements. It's like a little Europe that is still to be discovered in these places.

But the importance of the places and drama took place over here are forgotten over time, except very few official records and very few collapsing architecture, even the people who live here now cannot fully comprehend the gravity of the strange historical events beyond imagination took place on their land.

For example, from my schooldays, I knew a place name Dinemardanga, which was not more than a neighborhood name for a growing up kid. I can’t remember anybody told what’s the relation of Dinemardanga and Denmark, even if somebody did what difference Denmark or Argentina can make into our mind other than name of two countries on the globe, names we had to mug up for examination, probably Argentina will be more appealing to me because of Diego Maradona. But I could truly put Dinemardanga in perspective to the source of the word, which came from the far away country name Denmak, only after I started to travel out of country for my bread and butter. By that time I can easily relate Denmark as a Scandinavian country with long cold winter, base of Maresk Company, birth place of Lego, pioneer in Wind power generation, Danish bakery products are world famous, more importantly if you think of any country whose name starts with letter D, obvious choice become this country.  More than 300 years ago people from that country came to this little known place of Ganges delta then established a small settlement and lived there and left their name behind where I grew up, that is unbelievable ! 

To fully comprehend the subject we’ll move further down to the history of a nearby place name Tamralipti or Tomluk.

Nearly two thousand years ago, in the days when the Emperor Chandragupta Vikramaditya ruled from his lofty capital in Ujjain, there was a thriving port, not far from the metropolis in the Ganges delta, by the name of Tamralipti. Ships called from all over the world to that port city. People arrived from China, some headed for the capital of Ujjain, some for the universities of Nalanda, Vaishali and Vikramshila, some for the Buddhist pilgrimage to Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar – traders and scholars, sailors and holy men, all came. Men sailed from Kamboja, modern day Cambodia, retracing the path their forefathers’ ships had taken back to the land of their forefathers, headed for the markets in Pataliputra, Tamralipti or Ujjain, Arab traders arrived, as did mathematicians, who would carry the knowledge of the Indian scholars first to Babylon, then on to Alhambra and the West.

In the map of the Greek geographer Ptolemy, Tamralipti appears as Tamalities. Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang (Xuanzang) calls the town Tan-mo-lih-ti. Other texts show the name as Tāmalitti.

These textual references have led scholars to identify Tamralipti as one of the most important center of trade and commerce of early historic India which had multidirectional links with different geographical regions of South Asia and world. It has also led to the belief that Tamralipti had emerged as a thriving urban settlement, men and women from different nationalities talking in different languages lived over here, they walked on its streets filling its air with a true cosmopolitan noise in that period.

Doesn’t the vibration and dynamism of this place sounds familiar to modern day great cities like New York or London or Paris or Sydney or San Francisco? Then try to place it in mind at 2000 years back!

After the decline of the Gupta Empire, Bengal was ruled successively by the Pala and Sena dynasties. Tamralipti, the center of all maritime activity of a kingdom that thrived on foreign trade, continued to develop into a cosmopolitan city. Tamralipti’s decline began after Bengal fell to the Sultanate of Delhi in the twelfth century. The new ruling class from Central Asia obviously had little exposure to the sea and was poor seafarers. In spite of the decline, Tamralipti survived at least until the Ming Emperor’s fleet led by Admiral Zheng He, called on Tamralipti, in order to strengthen trade relations with Bengal. The Dudhpani rock inscription of Udaymana, of the eighth century AD, contains the last record of Tamralipti as a port of ancient South Asia.

Even while Tamralipti fossilized to Tamluk, things were happening in the general vicinity. While the people of Tamralipti went about stripping themselves of their heritage, history and their pride, maritime activities resumed in neighboring Satgaon, on the banks of the Hooghly. From ancient times the chief port and emporium of trade on the Western side of Bengal, was Satgaon situated on the river Saraswati, which branches off from the Hooghly below Tribeni and joins it higher up. The main current of the Hooghly till the middle of the sixteenth century streamed through the Saraswati, hence the importance of Satagon which was more assessable to larger ships. The word Saptagram means seven villages. These are identified as Bansberia, Kristapur, Basudebpur, Nityanandapur, Sibpur, Sambachora and Baladghati.

The Chinese and Arab sailors returned, though not in droves. Then in the middle of the sixteenth century there arrived a new breed of sailors, from a land hitherto unheard of – Portugal.

The first European to reach this area was the Portuguese sailor Vasco-Da-Gama. In 1536 Portuguese traders obtained a permit from Sultan Mahmud Shah to trade in this area. This historic inland port was, however, destined to decline on the advent of the Portuguese, chiefly because the river Hooghly diverted its current through the main channel, and caused the silting of the Saraswati which became unsuitable for navigation. The Portuguese then moved down to Hooghly. In those days the Hooghly River was the main route for transportation and Hooghly served as an excellent trading port. Within a few decades the town of Hooghly turned into a major commercial center and the largest port in Bengal. Later in 1579-80 Emperor Akbar gave permission to a Portuguese captain Pedro Tavares to establish a city anywhere in the Bengal province. They naturally choose Hooghly and thus Hooghly became the first European settlement in Bengal. In 1599 the Portuguese traders built a convent and a church in Bandel, it is dedicated to Nossa Senhora do Rosário, also known as "Nossa Senhora da Boa Viagem", meaning "Our Lady of the Good Journey"... This is the first Christian church in Bengal known as ‘Bandel Church’ today. The Portuguese used to transfer the goods from Bettore (opposite Howrah) by smaller boats to Satgaon(saptagram).The town of Hooghly drives a great trade, because all foreign goods are brought and all goods of the product of the Bengal are brought hither for exportation. The Portuguese brought exotic fruits, flowers and plants which became part of Bengali civilization and culture. From the early days of their arrival the Portuguese did not object to marrying local women.

After the period of Akbar, the Portuguese traders started misusing their powers. They started slave-trading, robbery and converting natives into Christians by pressure. At one of point of time they even stopped paying taxes to the Mughal Empire. As a result Emperor Shah Jahan ordered the then ruler of Bengal province, Qasim Khan Juvayni to block the city of Hooghly. This eventually led to a war in which the Portuguese were defeated comprehensively. A change of mind of the Emperor led to the release of the prisoners a year later and permission was granted to rebuild the settlement. However, Bandel never revived much except for the church. The church was already a pilgrimage for Christians, Hindus and Moslems alike, at the time of the attack, and continues to do so. The church is now a Basilica and a major center of the Roman Catholic religion in South East Asia.

The Portuguese established three settlements in the Hooghly district each distinct in origin, time and place. First at Satgaon by Affonso de Mello, the Second at Hoogli by Tavares (1579-80) and the third at Bendel in 1633.

Example of a little known Bengali-Portuguese cultural assimilation, A style of knathas from the 16th -17th centuries were produced for export to Europe. These Indo-Portuguese trade textiles came to be known as the 'Satgaon Quilts' (or the Bengalla Quilts) as they were made here. With the Portuguese losing Saptagram, these quilts too vanished.

In 1625 Vereenigte Oostindische Companie of Holland, more commonly known as the Jan Companie, established a settlement at Chinsurah a few miles south of Bandel to trade in opium, saltpeter, muslin and spices. They built a fort called Fort Gustavius and a church and several other buildings. A famous Frenchman, General Perron who served as military advisor to the Mahrattas, settled in this Dutch colony and built a large house here. Fort Gustavius has since been obliterated from the face of Chinsurah and the church collapsed recently due to disuse, but much of the Dutch heritage remains. These include old barracks, the Governor’s residence, General Perron’s house, now the Chinsurah College and the old Factory Building, now the office of the Divisional Commissioner.

Chinsurah is a beautiful historical town situated beside the river Ganges in Hooghly. It has a rich historical past.The town is filled with Dutch memories and architectures. The Dutch arrived here in 1628 and continued to rule the land for more than 150 years.The local buildings and language depicts the conglomeration of two cultures. The Dutch found Chinsurah a small and sleepy town suitable for carrying out trade and business.The Dutch presence in the area saw cultural assimilation in various forms till 1864,the Europeans participated in local religious festivals and even married local girls. The Shanderswartala  temple has a pair of brass drums and a silver statue of Shiva which was gifted by the Dutch. Chinsurah started to emerge as an epitome of Holland. Fort "Gustavus" built by the Dutch, now houses the Chinsurah court and is perhaps the longest court building in the world. St. John's Armenian Church built in 1695 is the second oldest church in Bengal. The church was constructed by the Armenians who came to Chinsurah in 1625 and lived peacefully with the Dutch. The Armenian custom of celebrating Christmas on January 6 has also become the custom here.

Before Chinsurah became a Dutch colony, it was already home to Calcutta’s oldest expatriate community. Armenians arrived here in the sixteenth century and settled this town. Their interests, however, were more local than their Dutch counterparts. They settled permanently in Chinsurah as traders, quite unlike the Dutch who remained predominantly sailors. The Armenians funded the English East India Company to build Calcutta and moved to this city where they continue to live to this day. However, the Armenians continue to gather at the old Armenian church in Chinsurah for the celebration of the festival of St. John the Baptist, their patron saint, in the last week of January.

The clock tower of Chinsurah is another piece of architecture. The tower stands as a landmark "Ghari More" in the middle of the town and the London-made clock was set up in 1911 in honour of King Edward-VII and still in use since then. A small and simple old Dutch church lines near the clock.The grave of a Dutch woman, Susana Anna Maria who died in 1809, looks like a temple and is a marvel of Indo-Dutch architecture. The Dutch settlement of Chinsurah survived until 1825 when the Dutch in their process of consolidating their interests in modern day Indonesia, ceded Chinsurah to the English in lieu of the island of Sumatra.

Chandannagar was established as a French colony in 1673, when the French obtained permission from Ibrahim Khan, the Nawab of Bengal, to establish a trading post on the right bank of the Hooghly River. Bengal was then a province of the Mughal Empire. It became a permanent French settlement in 1688, and in 1730 Joseph François Dupleix was appointed governor of the city, during whose administration more than two thousand brick houses were erected in the town and a considerable maritime trade was carried on. For a time, Chandannagar was the main center for European commerce in Bengal. Until the middle of the next century, Chandernagor rivaled Calcutta in its trade. The wars between the English and French were reflected thousands of miles away in the waters of the Ganges, too. Chandernagor was a heavily armed French garrison as was Calcutta for the English. The French built the Fort d’Orleans amongst a number of other buildings. Chandernagor’s history reflects the upheaval of Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the course of these wars, Chandernagor was taken by the British twice between 1757 and 1763 and then again between 1794 and 1815. Chandernagor was the sourcing point for opium for the French and supported more than half of the finances of French Indo-China.

Chandernagor remained a French colony until 1949 when a referendum led to its merger with the Republic of India. Chandernagor was a favorite spot for rich Calcuttans during the first half of the twentieth century for French food and wine, duty-free. Chandernagor’s French aura remains even after almost fifty years since the departure of the last Adminsitrateur. A gate with the motto of the French Republic "Liberte Egalite Fraternite" marks the entrance to the former Etablissment de Chandernagor. The quai Dupleix, Chandernagor’s waterfront road is lined with shady trees and public benches, replicas of the ones in Parisian parks. The former Administrateur’s eighteenth century mansion is now a museum of French heritage in Chandernagor. The former Hotel de Paris, the Couvent Saint-Joseph and Rabindranath Tagore’s house are amongst the many heritage buildings that line the quai Dupleix. Behind the Administrateur’s residence stands the Eglise du Sacre Coeur, reminiscent of French village churches with a statue of Joan d’Arc and a Lourdes grotto. On the Rue de Paris, to the north of the town is the French cemetery with more memories of the colonial age.

The Danes first settled on the banks of the Hooghly at the same time as the French in about 1676. The Danes first settled near Hooghly in 1698. Their first settlement was at Gondalpara, the south east corner of the French territory of Chandernagor, the spot to this day known as Danemardanga.

The Danish East India Company established a colony called Fredericknagore, in honor of King Frederick the Fifth near Serampore in 1699. In the year 1755 they obtained the permission from Alivardi Khan, the then Viceroy of Bengal to settle and erect a factory at Serampore. The chief of the Danish factory, who took over Serampore, was named as Scotsman. Occupied twice by the English during with their war with Denmark, Fredericknagore failed as a commercial venture. In 1777, after the Danish company went bankrupt. During the war that ensued from 1757 to 1763, between France and England, the Danes took no active part, but their sympathies were naturally with the French, who had given them houseroom for so long in their own settlement at Chandernagor. Meanwhile in 1778 Serampur came under the direct administration of the King of Denmark. Serampore became a Danish crown colony.

A few years later came the golden days of Serampur trade during the American War in 1780. England was at war with three great maritime nations – France, Holland and America.English vessels were exposed to the attacks of privateers who captured large number of Indiamen and rates of insurance were very heavy. During the war period the ships loaded with cargo under the Danish flag were found safe on sea due to the impartial and non aligned foreign policy adopted by Denmark. Goods shipped from Serampore went in neutral bottoms and naturally the Danish ships easily got valuable freights at high rates. The Danish East India Company made large profits.

Towards the end of the 18th century the Danish administrators could turn Serampur into an elegant and protected town and an attractive tourist resort with its magnificent palaces, widely built Strand Road along the river, Serampur was a charming town which drew the attention of foreign travellers.

Serampore’s commercial failure was complemented by its immense success on the cultural front. As the English did not permit missionary activities in their territories, Serampore became a safe haven for missionaries in India. In 1799, Reverend William Carey and two fellow Baptist missionaries established the first printing press in Asia, here in Serampore and began printing copies of the Bible. In 1819, Carey went on to establish the Serampore College, the first institution of western higher education in Asia. In 1827, a Royal Charter by the King of Denmark incorporating it as a university at par with those in Copenhagen and Kiel. In 1845, Denmark ceded Serampore to Britain ending the nearly 150 years of Danish presence in Bengal. Serampore’s Danish heritage lingers to this day. Serampore University’s massive 1821 neo-classical building now serves as a Baptist theological institute and a museum on the life of William Carey. The mansions built by wealthy Danish families on the waterfront, the St. Olaf Church, Royal Danish Army barracks and the cemetery stand testimony to Serampore’s Danish heritage to this day.

Bankipur was famous as the principal settlement of the Ostend Company, the one great effort made by the Austrian empire to secure a foothold in India. The Ostend Company was formed in 1722–1723, and with a capital of less than a million sterling founded two settlements, one of them in the vicinity of Dutch Chinsura. Both English and Dutch were offended and in 1727, in order to obtain the European guarantee for the Pragmatic Sanction, the court of Vienna resolved to sacrifice the Company and suspended its charter. It became bankrupt in 1784 and ceased to exist in 1793. But in the meantime in 1733 the English and Dutch stirred up the local general at Hoogly to pick a quarrel. He attacked Bankipur and the garrison of only fourteen persons set sail for Europe. Thus imperial Austrian interests disappeared from India.

Other than these major European countries many other tried to gain trade opportunity and establish settlement in these area for example :Greeks established a colony in Rishra, Germans, Prussians in Bhadreshwar, Belgians in Bankibazar so on and so forth.

The East India Company was formed in 1600 in London by appointment of Queen Elizabeth I. The English began trading shortly afterwards but did not venture into Bengal until about fifty years later. The East India Company established its factories at the old Portuguese settlement of Satgaon near Hooghly and at Cassimbazar and English Bazaar, modern day Maldah. Each of these settlements was, however, progressively rendered inaccessible to larger ships and a new site was requested from the Nawab of Bengal. The Company suggested other location, the village of Sutanuti, and already a trading post, which the Emperor accepted. Job Charnock, represented the East India Company when the "factory" of East India Company opened at the village of Sutanuti on August 24, 1690. In 1692, the settlement at Satgaon was moved to Sutanuti. In 1696, Emperor Aurungzeb granted permission to the Company to fortify their possessions in Sutanuti. Fortification meant added security to traders and far-sighted Armenian traders realized that the Company was in a position to provide better security than the Dutch in Chinsurah was. They financed the Company’s purchase of Sutanuti and the neighboring villages of Kolikata and Gobindopur from the Sabarna Roy Chowdhury family of landlords in 1698. Construction of Fort William was completed in 1699, and Calcutta, as the union of three villages came to be known was born.

The success of Calcutta ensured that the Danes, Armenians, Chinese, French, Prussians, Greeks and Belgians packed their bags from Hooghly and arrived in Calcutta. The local business communities, Tagores and Mullicks sold their vast lands (or most of it) to move to Calcutta to set up banks and trading houses. The possibility of true global village was gone with the wind faster than it came.

Thus the gave us an amazing story: How a small piece of land got global importance all of a sudden and lost that fast and  vanished behind history. However, Hooghly’s fascinating story is the story of globalization, the impact of different races brought face to face due to a perfect storm of technological improvements and geopolitical conditions. Hooghly’s story brings forth the best of humanity, and like all things as imperfect as human nature, sometimes the worst of it as well.

Other than some historical event dates, what was the interaction between these widely diversified culture what alteration took place in socio-cultural level is hardly known to us.

Afterwards first Industrial development of India took place almost on the same land, which fueled a new flux of migration to this land from furthest corner of Indian continent, then partition of Bengal and migration from Eastern part of Bengal changed demography of the people of this land quite a bit, which was almost immediately followed by a communist ruled government in state which divert interest of business community from this place and this poor earth couldn’t compete with economic developments in many other places in post Independent India. Most of the people migrated for economic reason moved out leaving only....... 

Scars from those recent events are more clearly visible on this piece of land today than anything else, but somehow I have a feeling, the impression from those 400 year old interaction with European or other community was not totally vanished from its core culture.  

The lessons learned by the people from history of globalization, molded the social values of that place and which is being passed through generations. Probably, importance of these values are no more limited for some unfortunates who forced to leave their place of love, globalization brought this cultural mix in every possible corner of today’s world.I think those ripple of history left a permanent impression of making this as lifestyle of this part of Bengal which is still flowing beneath the surface.

We have example after example of those son of soils from this land of its 400 years history who can prove this line wrong. They always encourage us to explore out of our comfort zone, with a believe true human values are universal so there is always an opportunity of positive interaction even other side is unknown, or others with whom lot of things doesn’t common with us, but at the same time reminded interaction should not cross the boundary of productiveness and necessity or a predefined positive objective, not for any purposeless venturing to get fun or with an utopia “Universal Brotherhood” or thrill from unknown, which normally ends up with disaster.  Which resonates the famous shloka from Shrimad Bhagad Geeta :

Narrating this statement is one thing but practicing the same in daily life is different , I think those ripple of history left a permanent impression of making this statement as lifestyle of this part of Bengal which is still flowing beneath the surface.

Other than few historical records, we hardly know about those interactions, everything must have flowed through Bhagirathi. But I think present age may be the right time to unearth some of those stories, not because of the romanticism of celebrating history but for the benefit of everybody who are being impacted intentionally or unintentionally by globalization. If we can unearth those story it can be a relevant piece of History for study to understand the impact of globalization to human life. 

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References :

http://remistry.wordpress.com/

http://www.westbengaltourism.gov.in/

http://books.google.com/books?id=ou82_lNAJsMC

http://books.google.com/books?id=nXrUAAAAMAAJ&pghttp://www.baga.net/history-of-bengal.html

http://ashuchat.wordpress.com/

http://biggybblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/historic-saptagram-tribeni.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/