Indian Express, India
June 7 2009
An Armenian link, fading
Alokparna Das
Posted: Sunday , Jun 07, 2009 at 0245 hrs IST
From a distance, it almost looks like a mosque, complete with a dome
and mini minar or chhatri-like projections on its four sides, of which
only two have survived. Its peeled-off plaster and dilapidated state
reveal layers of slim bricks dating back to the later Mughal period. A
closer look and one can spot a plaque announcing the Armenian
Association in Kolkata as the trustee of the place. A faded signboard
identifies the building as a nearly three-century-old Armenian chapel.
Located near the Kishanganj Railway Station in Sarai Rohilla area,
this is the only surviving Armenian place of worship in the
city. Built most likely around 1781-82, this rundown building and some
tombs at its back survived the Revolt of 1857 only to be encroached
upon by a colony that’s now called the `Christian Compound’.
The place was not always as congested as it is now. Professor
A. Dasgupta, a retired Delhi University teacher, has fond memories of
a quiet cemetery and a medieval structure adjoining it when she stayed
in the vicinity as a child. `The solitude, the all-pervading silence
and shaded greenery of the cemetery, the adjoining kuchcha road with
no habitation, except the railway colony, are part of my cherished
memory of the place. Every day, I was taken for a morning walk to the
place. Of all the graves, that of a six-year-old girl used to haunt
me’perhaps because I was a child myself,’ she says.
Photo: The chapel; the tomb of Armenian trader and Sufi poet Hazrat
Sarmad; graves at the back of the chapel, encroached upon by what is
now called the `Christian Compound’
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