বাংলায় পড়ুন
For thousands of years, a river longs to meet the sea to whisper into his ears, the tales happy and sad that she has witnessed throughout her journey from the from the lap of the white, glorious, ever-frozen, and silent mountains to the chaotic, plain shores.
Mythologically, river Hooghly was brought on Earth to survive the ancestors of king Bhagirath. No matter how the river was brought, river Hooghly remains to be the biggest port of Kolkata.
The river has witnessed not only several mythological events but also seen the journey of Kolkata from the Kolikata to Calcutta to Kolkata. She has watched foreign ships floating in for the first time; she has seen the Romans, Greeks and French settle down on her banks. She has seen how the simple farmers started to export cotton and muslin. She has been there for ages. She saw the royal, kind hearted Nawabs developing Bengal; she saw the heartless rulers exploiting Bengal and also remained the silent spectator to the torture of Indigo cultivation on the farmers by the East India Company. She saw it all from the green fields full of crops, food stores overflowing with rice, grams, beans to the Bengal with no food, draught, famine- the Bengal famine of 1770, 1943 killing millions of her children who were full of health and happy with her blessing- the pure water.
She has been there throughout. With time her pure water ways have been compromised for the factories. Modern infrastructure took over the boat ferries to cross the river. The Howrah Bridge was constructed so cars, carts could cross the river easily. The river has seen the floating Howrah Bridge, to get reconstructed to what we now have.
She has always been there like a mother, protecting and being there always, the silent spectator to the growing up of the two sister cities- Kolkata and Howrah --- River Hooghly.
