Pragya Paramita takes a walk along Park Street with a group of enthusiastic young friends to know more about the cityWalter Savage Landor once famously wrote — ‘Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes, May weep but never see, A night of memories and sighs I consecrate to thee’ — of his beloved Rose Aylmer who sailed to Calcutta with her aunt and died two years later. And the remains of Landor’s beloved, who died sometime in the eighteenth century, are one of the many obscure graves dotting the Park Street cemetery. It’s not one of the best graves in the cemetery though but it certainly is one of the things that will be pointed out to those who take the Calcutta Walks along the entire Park Street in the morning.Calcutta Walks, an endeavour started by a few enthusiastic young friends, has been organising walking tours around different parts of the city for the past one year and lately they added Park Street to the list of historical roads on their itinerary. Some of the other walks they conduct are in Dalhousie Square, Chowringhee, Sovabazar, Bow Barracks to Burra Bazar and Kumartuli.Park Street, says Iftekhar Ahsan, founder-member of the walk, is one of the most interesting and fascinating streets in the city. And a trip down this road could never get boring. The Park Street chapter starts with a quick history of the old Asiatic Society. Formed by Indophile William Jones, it was also one of the first societies to be formed in the country. While one of the famed jewel still stands, the other wonder at this end of the road, has but disappeared into the oblivion. Hall and Anderson, that used to be one of the biggest and oldest departmental stores on this side of the continent, was patronised by the royal families of the country. “At 5 lakh square feet, even in history, it dwarfs over the modern departmental stores,” says Ahsan.From the past to the present, one of the best- kept secrets of the road is Flury’s bakery situated behind the Apeejay House where breads and muffins would still be baked in an oven that was brought to the city in 1905 till about a decade ago when the place was renovated. From the back doors of the ‘gentle lady’, as Flury’s is affectionately called, it’s then a stroll down with quick references to the Queen’s Mansion, that was lost by a certain JC Golston in the races and the Stephan Court founded by the Armenian Aratoon Stephan, who used to drive a wheelbarrow in the streets of Calcutta and 25 years later ended up owning the Grand Hotel.“Interestingly, Park Street was known as the Burial Ground Road and the place used to be marshes. There were settlements in North Kolkata and Chowringhee but not here. This was basically an elevated road going to the cemetery,” says Ahsan.While Park Street to most of its patrons may be the road of the Sky Room and the wild girl as the Trincas is called, Ahsan makes it clear it’s more than that. “There is the Goethel Library in St Xavier’s College housing over a thousand books printed before 1800, and of course the San Soucu theatre patronised by Esther Leech who died when her dress caught fire in the theatre before her performance. Today, it’s the St Xavier’s auditorium,” says Ahsan.From there it’s a quick walk to the grave of eighteenth century British poet Landor’s beloved Rose Aylmer. But the cemetery, as Ahsan points out, is a place that requires a full day’s dedication. So a walk among the graves, a quick look at the graves of Derozio and another Indophile Charles ‘Hindu’ Stuart, and then it’s back to Flury’s for a breakfast.“I have been to plenty of such walks in other cities like Singapore, Hyderabad, Delhi and I realised that there could not be just one way to see the city, and this is one of the unique ways one can experience the city,” says Ahsan.
