The chief tourist attraction in Murshidabad is a bit of a fraud,ladies and gentlemen; the Hazarduari Palace, or the palace of a thousand doors, only has just over nine hundred actual doors. In this day and age, with urban building laws and all the rest of it, you could never hope to get away with an irregularity like that. Duncan McLeod, the architect and, therefore, chief errant party in this case, lived and worked in a different era, thankfully for him. He was commissioned to build the palace by Nawab Nazim Humayun Jah, and in the early 19th century, the Nawab was always right (in case of doubt, refer Rule 1 – ‘The Nawab is always right’). Jah was the descendant of Mir Jafar, the fellow who almost literally stabbed Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, in the back and became Caliph instead of the Caliph, as it were. As such, it might be safe to assume that he was not the sort of man to fret over a hundred or so missing doors. In actual fact, Jah never even lived in the palace; it was used for Durbars and other official occasions, apart from being the residence of various high-ranking British officials of the time.
We shall, however, forgive all involved their little deceptions. Their definition of ‘One Thousand’ may have differed from what we hold to be true today, and in any case, the name ‘Hazarduari’ sounds so much better than ‘Lagbhag nau-so duari’. We shall instead celebrate the fact that they built it in the first place, because the sprawling, three-storied edifice, completed in 1837, is quite a sight on an early winter’s morning (and indeed at any time of day or year). Situated on a 41-acre property overlooking the Bhagirathi river, it’s a huge, stately building, pale yellow in colour and very mixed in terms of architectural style – although the predominant influence is clearly Victorian. I had rolled up bright and early for two reasons; firstly, because I hadn’t entered the palace the previous day due to a rule disallowing cell phones and cameras (I had both) and further because the queue to get in stretched for about a mile, this being peak holiday season. Bengalis really love to travel, and they normally do so with a minimum of twenty family members, which adds up to a lot of Bengalis. I had realised right off that the early bird would get the queue, so there I was, fifth in line and trying very hard to ignore an obnoxious little brat attempting to rip my rear trouser pocket clean off. I controlled my Fist of Death long enough to make it past the ticket checker, after which I gratefully peeled off to explore the place.
Most of the palace is now a museum, and houses the usual assortment of weapons, clothes, paintings and other bric a brac. Not the Louvre, certainly, but you do get a feel of days past, especially when you look at the various books, publications and letters on display. I found it especially amusing reading a series of condolence letters that various East India Company officials had written to the Nawab, expressing their heartfelt grief at the loss of one of his relatives – a more gratuitous example of posterior-kissing would be hard to find. Not that the Indian nobility of the time was much better, mind you. They did their utmost to westernise themselves, as can be seen from the recreated drawing room on display – you could be in an English country manor, really. Having looked around and satisfied myself that there were lots of doors in the palace, I blundered my way to the exit (typically, the directions on offer seemed to be designed expressly to get you hopelessly lost). The palace had been worth a visit, definitely, but what lay directly across from it had piqued my interest more – the Nizamat Imambara, built by Humayun Jah’s son Feradun Jah. It was a singularly impressive structure, and was certainly the largest such that I had ever seen, trumping Lucknow’s Bada Imambara by a margin. Apparently it took just 11 months to complete, which is a staggering feat of engineering given its size. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get in and have a look around because the gate was locked; this was a pity, because the place had an air of mystique about it that seemed worth investigating. I thus went off to have a traditional Bengali lunch at a roadside eatery.
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