Streetwise Kolkata: Old Post Office Street, stuck between a hazy past and a murky future

The Old Post Office Street finds mention in several archival documents pertaining to the city of Calcutta, some predating the 1780s, making it one of the oldest streets in the city. (Express)

Old maps of the city indicate that the post office in question, the first in the Indian subcontinent, was located in a building on the corner of Church Lane and Hastings Street, now called Kiran Shankar Ray Road, just off what is called Old Post Office Street. The post office occupied the premises between 1774-1784, before being shifted to the GPO in BBD Bagh. Today, at this address stands a three-storey brick building with iron grilles whose rooms have been leased out to several businesses.

Two of the oldest maps of Calcutta, by Mark Wood (1784) and A. Upjohn (1794), both mention the presence of this street as ‘Old Post Office Street’. While it is not clear whom this post office served, it was located in an area largely inhabited by the British and other Europeans and it is likely that they were the residents who frequented the post office for its services.

The post office occupied the premises between 1774-1784, before being shifted to the GPO in BBD Bagh. (Express)

One of the earliest known documents referencing this street is a mortgage deed, writes urban historian P. Thankappan Nair in his book ‘A History of Calcutta’s Streets’. “A mortgage deed of November 30/1st December, 1787, relates to buildings and godowns at the corner of a street in Calcutta aforesaid formerly called the Post Office Street and abuting to the north on a piece of ground on which the church is now erecting…”, Nair quotes.

Among the most descriptive documentations of this street can be found in the writings of Eliza Fay, an English writer who spent considerable periods of time in India during her lifetime, especially in Calcutta.(Express)

He writes about an entry in the book ‘Bengal Past & Present (volume 14)’, that records the existence of a deed from January 1788 that mentions “an upper-roomed house, shop etc. in Post Office Street, bounded on the north by a street leading to the river, on the east by a house and premises belonging to Sir Robert Chambers, and which is or lately was in the occupation of Warren Hastings, Esq. on the west by the Post Office Street aforesaid”.

Among the most descriptive documentations of this street can be found in the writings of Eliza Fay, an English writer who spent considerable periods of time in India during her lifetime, especially in Calcutta. In her letters, collected and reproduced as ‘Original Letters from India’, published in 1817, it appears that Fay lived in the building that once housed the old post office in 1789. But by the time Fay moved into the building, the post office had been relocated, according to the book ‘The Postal History of Zemindari Dawk, 1707-1906’ by Mohini Lal Majumdar.

In her book ‘Calcutta: Past & Present’, Kathleen Blechynden writes the post office may have been relocated from its original address because a portion of the building where it was formerly located was pulled down after the construction of the nearby St. John’s Church started and the environs were altered.

After the Calcutta High Court was established in 1862, several buildings came up along both sides of the Old Post Office Street, many of which remain standing today, though in a severely dilapidated condition.

Various law firms and lawyer’s offices occupy the buildings on this street, in addition to typing services, printing and photocopy services, with a handful of book stores specialising in legal encyclopaedias and books. But one of the most striking buildings is that of Temple Chambers, a large Edwardian building constructed in 1910, similar to barristers’ inns in London, designed by British architect Vincent Jerome Esch, known for his work on several landmark buildings across India.

This building’s proximity to the High Court and its name clearly indicate that it was always meant to serve as a building for the city’s lawyers who practised in the high court. For readers of contemporary writing on Kolkata’s history, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Temple Chambers finds mention in the debut book ‘Kato Ajanare’ of Kolkata-based author Mani Shankar Mukherjee, also known as ‘Sankar’ in his writings in English. While in his teens, Mukherjee worked as a clerk to the last British barrister of the Calcutta High Court, Noel Frederick Barwell, whose offices were located in Temple Chambers.

The buildings across Old Post Office Street evoke a similar sense of nostalgia for a version of the city that is fast disappearing: high ceilings, ornate pilaster on the exterior and interior of buildings, criss-crossing electrical wires with cobwebs and dust spun around them hanging perilously close to anyone about five feet in height, flights of wooden staircases and balustrades, marble and plaster walls long rubbed off their original colour, now painted with red spit marks.

But similar to residents of other colonial buildings in the city, both residential and commercial, occupants of Temple Chambers and the remaining buildings in this street, have no interest in or patience for people romanticising these properties. Instead, they look perplexed with those who find themselves fascinated by history. Many of these buildings, including Temple Chambers, have been entangled in litigation, and their ownership status and future are not clear, even to the buildings’ occupants themselves.

The Old Post Office Street, struggling to accommodate every business big and small trying to be as close to the Calcutta High Court premises as possible, has resulted in enterprises and hawkers spilling out onto the neighbouring streets. As lawyers run about in their black and white uniforms, litigants attempting to keep up pace, the street and its history have been relegated to old maps of Calcutta.