A visit to Serampore - Land of Indian Renaissance

EVERY time I visited Kolkata, I wanted to go to Serampore, but the visit never materialised. This time, with a free day at my disposal, I decided to go to that small town in Hoogly district, whose historicity is not known to many even in Kolkata. Thus when I mentioned “Serampore University” many raised their eyebrows, for they had never heard about such a university.

It is a tragedy that Serampore does not get its due. It is the first university in India, established in 1818, less than a year after the first college – Hindu College, renamed Presidency College – was set up in Kolkata. It was decades later that Calcutta, Bombay and Madras universities came into being. Even more important, from a journalist’s point of view, is that the first proper newspaper in the country – The Friend of India – was launched from Serampore in 1818.

The puritans may say that James Hickey’s ‘The Bengal Gazette’ was the first newspaper. But then, it was more a scandal-sheet than a newspaper. I would call Serampore as the place where Indian Renaissance began, though many may laugh at it. I will come to that in an instant.

My colleague from Pratichi (India) Trust Paromita Haldar and The Herald of India contributor from Romania Mihaela Gligor were happy to join me on the trip. They had heard about Serampore but had never visited it. The car we hired over the phone – Maruti Omni -- was a disappointment. Far more disappointing was the driver, who claimed he knew the route well, but was found to ask for direction at every junction.

As a salute to Prof Amartya Sen’s ‘The Argumentative Indian’ that Mihaela Gligor was translating into Romanian, we decided to call the driver by that time. As we crossed the Nivedita bridge, named after Sister Nivedita, the driver suddenly stopped the vehicle. He was trying to figure out which road to take, the one that goes straight or the one that goes to Dakshineswar temple.

Suddenly, Mihaela, who is otherwise parsimonious with the spoken work, turned garrulous. “It is a beautiful temple, much like a cake”. Since I had never heard anyone comparing a temple to a cake, I instantly wanted to see the temple. That solved the driver’s problem, too, as he had already driven a bit on that road. It was only when I neared the temple did I realize that nearly three decades ago, my wife and I had visited it while holidaying in Calcutta.

We realized it was a wrong day to visit the temple – the car couldn’t move caught as it was in a terrible jam. Serpentine queues of devotees, each carrying a small basket containing flowers, camphor and incense as an offering to Goddess Kali, were found in the temple premises. Paromita’s pleadings with the security guard to let us get in to just have a view of the temple from inside the compound received the expected rejection.

In any case, all three of us had visited the temple built by Rani Rashmoni in 1855. Its fame doesn’t rest on its nine spires but on the fact that Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Vivekananda’s guru, served as its priest. Situated right on the bank of the Hoogly, it has a beautiful garden and two large ponds around it. The ponds are closed for visitors except the winged variety that arrives from far and wide.

As the multitudes were growing, it was far more difficult to drive out than drive in. “Lunch is ready, lunch is ready” beckoned a restaurant employee in Bangla and English as the driver tried in vain to wriggle out of the jam.