The travels of Bengalis in the past
Sumana Dam
The first edition of Sanjib Chandra Chattopadhyay's Palamou was published in the Bangio Sahitya Parishad in the month of Baishakh, 1351 , which corresponds to the year 1944 in the Gregorian calendar. Prior to this, essays on Palamou were published under the editorial work of Sanjib Chandra Chattopadhyay in the Bangadarshan magazine in the years 1881 and 1882 (in the 7th, 8th, and 9th years of its publication, with two, three, and one essays respectively).
In the book Palamou, the author never explicitly mentions the time of his journey. However, he repeatedly states that this journey was made long ago. His brother, the great novelist Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, published a book called Sanjivani Sudha in 1898 in memory of Sanjib Chandra Chattopadhyay. In it, Bankim Chandra wrote a short biography of his brother, revealing that Sanjib Chandra's full name was Sanjiban Chandra Chattopadhyay. He was born in Baishakh, 1756 in the Shak calendar (1834 CE) and passed away in Baishakh, 1811 Shakabda (1889 CE). Bankim Chandra mentions that in the early part of his career, Sanjib Chandra had visited Palamou. However, Bankim does not specify any exact dates in his biography. He also mentions that after Sanjib Chandra wrote Bengal Raiyats in 1864, the Lieutenant Governor was so pleased with it that he rewarded him with the position of Deputy Magistrate, and Sanjib was appointed to Krishnanagar. After two years there, the government sent him to Palamou on a serious assignment. This helps establish that Sanjib Chandra traveled to Palamou in the late 1860s.
Sanjib Chandra Chattopadhyay, a novelist, essayist, and one of the editors of Bangadarshan, wrote several other works, including novels like Kantha Mala and Madhabilata, and a historical work Jal Pratapchand. Despite his brilliance, he was very disorganized in his personal life. Although he was exceptionally talented, he could not complete his formal education. Even though he reached the position of Deputy Magistrate, he was unable to retain the job. His writing, although skilled, was often chaotic, as seen in Palamou, which reflects his natural tendency for disorder. This discussion focuses only on the travel-related parts of the book, excluding irrelevant content.
At the time of planning his trip to Palamou, he did not know the exact location or distance. After consulting a map, he planned his route. Very few people had traveled to Palamou at that time. He hired a mail cart from the England Transit Company at Raniganj and set off at midnight for Hazaribagh. The next morning, the cart stopped at the eastern bank of the Barakar River. The small river was crossed on foot by everyone, with carts being pushed across. Here, he first saw wild indigenous men and women, along with children, who called him “Sahib” and began asking him for money, likely because they assumed that anyone traveling by cart was a Sahib. From Barakar, he first saw small mountains, and as someone who had never seen mountains before, he was extremely pleased. In the afternoon, as the cart passed near a mountain, he got off and tried to walk closer to it, but after a long walk, he returned, realizing that it was very difficult for a Bengali to estimate the distance to a mountain.
The next day, he reached Hazaribagh, where he rested and ate at the home of a respectable person. At around 1:30 AM, he began his journey to Chotanagpur by palanquin, and after a few days, he reached Palamou. From Ranchi to Palamou, he thought the mountains in the distance looked like clouds. Gradually, the mountains and then the forests became clearer.
In those forests, he saw a group of Kol boys with bells around their necks, herding buffaloes. They resembled Lord Krishna, wearing a necklace of seven beads, and their appearance was small and dark. The boys and girls were playing and dancing. He found them neither beautiful nor ugly, but rather, in the embrace of nature, they seemed particularly beautiful. Here he wrote the famous saying, “Wild creatures are beautiful in the forest; children are beautiful in their mother’s lap.”
Later, when he reached Palamou, he saw that the dense forests contained rivers and villages. The mountains appeared one after another like the endless waves of the sea, creating lasting echoes. The Kol people mainly lived in villages with 30 to 32 huts made of leaves.
Kol women wore a small piece of cloth around their waist and were bare-chested. They adorned themselves with bead necklaces, and their ears had small flowers, with larger flowers on their heads. When the women and children saw his palanquin, they gathered around. Elderly women were rare among the Kol, as they remained youthful due to their extremely hard work. The men, however, appeared to have less vitality. Kol men and women drank alcohol, but none of them became intoxicated.
Every evening, the author felt an irresistible attraction to visit the Latehar mountain to enjoy nature’s beauty. He named one mountain Kumari and would sit in its shadow, gazing at the small world within the surrounding mountains. Smoke rose from the villages, and the sound of a drum might have drifted in the air. His white tent seemed to stand alone in the forest like a dove. This was the author’s world.
One day, he saw a young man, with great courage, ignoring the objections of several women, going to hunt a tiger that had killed his cow. The author took his gun and accompanied the young man. Together, they found the tiger sleeping in a cave. The young man rolled a large stone onto the tiger, killing it and fulfilling his vow.
One night, under the moonlight, he was invited to watch the Kol people's dance. He felt that their songs seemed to touch the base of the mountains, and in rhythm with the dance, it felt as though the moon itself was dancing in the sky.
He also observed Kol weddings. In these marriages, the bride was taken without any rituals or mantras. The Kol people’s greatest celebration was the wedding, during which they spent 10 to 15 rupees—a significant amount for them. To gather this money, they often fell into the trap of borrowing from moneylenders, which burdened them for life.
The main resource of Palamou was the Mahua flower. The flowers (called Moua by the author) fell to the ground in such abundance that the area was covered with them, and the air buzzed with the sound of thousands of bees and flies. The Kol people used these flowers as food, and dried, they could last for months. During the rainy season, the poor Kol people survived by eating only these flowers for 2 to 3 months. The flowers were also used to make alcohol.
Thus, the travel narrative concludes, leaving the rest unknown to the reader
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