Chaitanya Library and Garanhata Road

  • On the main road of Beadon Street is situated the Chaitanya library, founded in 1889 on the day of Saraswati Puja. At its inception, there were 284 members out of which only 6 were females. Women were not allowed to read and write during that time so they were hardly seen in the library. Today the library is in pathetic shape with empty reading rooms, damaged, termite infested rare collection of books on the floor, layers of dust, damp rooms and broken ceilings. 
  • Chaitanya Library is the conceptualised of Gaur Hari Sen and his bosom friend Kunj Behari Dutta. Grandfather of Kunj Behari, Shri Ganganarayan Dutta was then a well-to-do person in the Beadon Street locality. Gaur Hari persuaded him to donate some money and a large room on the ground floor of his house to set up a library. Apart from that, Noni Mohan Banerjee donated Rs.20 for the library. Rabindranath Tagore was one of its founder members. 
  • Today this library holds approximately 1, 50,000 books and 27,000 periodicals with several rare volumes donated by stalwarts of the Bengal intelligentsias of the bygone era.



  • As one proceeds along Girish Park and Minerva theatre, Garanhata Road is the next destination. The placed is believed to be named after ‘garan’ trees, native to the Sundarbans mangrove forests which were present in plenty. 
  • Where the street turns into Jadu Pandit Lane are twin temples, surrounded by small welding factories and jewelry shops. 
  • Just before the largest Bengali festiva Durga Pujo one finds the shops displaying ornaments to adorn the Goddess and other associate deities. The area being close to the Kumortulli (where idols are constructed) probably saw the rise of this jewelry business. 




  • The Jora Shiv Mandir in the typical Bengali ‘aatchala’ style, were reportedly built by Panchanan Dutta in or around 1803. Panchanan Dutta was initially a trader of textiles who later earned huge fortunes by selling Garan tree wood. Today its address is H9R6+JHQ, Garanhata St, Garanhatta, Beniatola, Kolkata 700006. Later the temple was renovated by Ramkanai Jaminiranjan Pal of College Street Area.


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