A pilgrimage to Calcutta recalls Armenian history
Before there were call centers and Indian conglomerates, before the East India Co. or the British Raj, there were Armenians who made their way to India to trade and to escape religious persecution from the Turks and, later, Persians.
Entrepreneurial and devout Christians, but familiar with the Islamic ways of Mughal emperors, Armenians arrived in northeast India in the early 1600s, some 60 years before British adventurers became established traders here. They acquired gems, spices and silks, and brought them back to Armenian enclaves in Persia such as Isfahan.
Eventually, some Persian Armenians - including my ancestors - left and set up their own businesses and communities here, landing first on India's western flank in Surat and nearby Bombay, the present-day Mumbai, and then moving to the river banks in northeast India that led to Calcutta's founding as a sprawling manufacturing and port city.
At its zenith, Calcutta was the British Empire's "second city." Its vast manufacturing centers rivaled the English Midlands, and wealth flowed freely to Jews, Britons, Armenians and some Indians. They in turn poured money into elaborate colonial mansions, Victorian memorials and a luxurious Western way of life virtually transplanted to the wilting jungle of West Bengal.
The British are gone now, of course, and that way of life is literally crumbling in the dusty, clogged streets of Calcutta. All but gone, too, are the Armenians who began leaving India long before the British.
But last week Armenians with Calcutta roots gathered here again from around the world. More than 250 people came officially for the 300th anniversary of the oldest church in Calcutta, a finely preserved Holy Church of Nazareth tucked inside the narrow, winding alleys and chaotic bazaars of the north section of this city.
Read entire article at International Herald Tribune
Entrepreneurial and devout Christians, but familiar with the Islamic ways of Mughal emperors, Armenians arrived in northeast India in the early 1600s, some 60 years before British adventurers became established traders here. They acquired gems, spices and silks, and brought them back to Armenian enclaves in Persia such as Isfahan.
Eventually, some Persian Armenians - including my ancestors - left and set up their own businesses and communities here, landing first on India's western flank in Surat and nearby Bombay, the present-day Mumbai, and then moving to the river banks in northeast India that led to Calcutta's founding as a sprawling manufacturing and port city.
At its zenith, Calcutta was the British Empire's "second city." Its vast manufacturing centers rivaled the English Midlands, and wealth flowed freely to Jews, Britons, Armenians and some Indians. They in turn poured money into elaborate colonial mansions, Victorian memorials and a luxurious Western way of life virtually transplanted to the wilting jungle of West Bengal.
The British are gone now, of course, and that way of life is literally crumbling in the dusty, clogged streets of Calcutta. All but gone, too, are the Armenians who began leaving India long before the British.
But last week Armenians with Calcutta roots gathered here again from around the world. More than 250 people came officially for the 300th anniversary of the oldest church in Calcutta, a finely preserved Holy Church of Nazareth tucked inside the narrow, winding alleys and chaotic bazaars of the north section of this city.