The Mess-bari Culture of Calcutta
The late nineteenth and early twentieth century Calcutta witnessed a
rapid urbanization of the city. Hordes of people migrated from villages to this
metropolitan city in the hope of securing a job under the colonial ruler. A
huge number of students also came to the city to receive the modern British
education to ensure jobs at clerical posts under the Raj. Several education
acts (e.g. 1813, 1833, 1835, 1857 etc.) in the nineteenth century only confirm
the British pet project of manufacturing “Indian in blood and colour, but
English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect” (Macaulay’s Minute,
1835). As a result, the institutionalization of the English education became
necessary and several colleges were established in the major cities of India. Calcutta,
being the then capital of India, became a field of experiment where the
professional appeal of English education brought masses of students to the
newly founded colleges, such as Hindu College (f. 1817, now Presidency
University), Sanskrit College (f. 1824, now The Sanskrit College and
University), Scottish Church College (f. 1830), Medical College of Calcutta
(1835), St. Xavier’s College (1860) etc. The University of Calcutta was also
founded during this time in 1857.
Naturally, these students from the villages needed places to live in
the city. While, college hostel was not founded before 1861 (Hindu College
Hostel), the students used to stay in two-storeyed houses of the rich Baboos,
that were on rent for students and working professionals. These houses later
gained the popularity as Mess-bari. Dwijendranath Basu in his “Student
Mess” (1899) has pointed out how the majority of such messes were located in
Central Calcutta, such as in ‘Maniktala, Shimla, Badurbagan, Chorbagan,
Jhamapukur, Thonthone, Pataldanga, Chapatala, Bowbajar’ etc. Basu also talks
about a ‘lease agreement’ that has to be signed by the both parties, viz. the
owner and the boarders, where the rooms were given on rent for 9 months and the
rent had to be paid in the beginning of each month. He further adds the
three-fold expenses model in the mess, which includes 1. Fooding charge, 2.
Establishment charge (employing cooks and maids), and 3. Seat charge. This list
of expenses can also be corroborated from the letter of Peary Charan Sarkar, a
professor in Presidency College to the Principal, J. Sutcliffe, dated 31 August
1868. Sarkar writes,
‘By far the larger part of the students that come from the Mofussil
lodge here in a sort of mess account, in parties of four and five, sometimes eight
or ten, in small houses that can hardly be said to afford any proper
accommodation. Their food also is poor, and the division of the house rent, and
the wages of servant and cook, makes a very trifling amount for each to pay on
that score. The total of their expenses including tiffin, bedding, &c., is
about Rupees 16 per month. There are some, again, who are still poorer and fare
still more poorly and lodge in quarters not at all fit for their
habitation’.
The letter not only highlights the obsession with college education, but
also points out the poor inhabitable condition of living for the students in
general in the mess-system. A letter from J. Sutcliffe to W.S. Atkinson, dated
11 September 1868, shows how the majority of the students of Hindu College (140
out of 290) come from a family with a monthly income of below Rupees 100. Thus,
studying in Calcutta from the countryside was deemed to be an expensive affair.
Not only in non-fiction, but in fiction too the hardships of students in mess
have been captured. Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s celebrated work, Aparajito
(1931) shows how the protagonist, Apu, after getting admitted to Rippon
College of Calcutta, starved himself during the college breaks, as his mess
only served two-time meals at lunch and dinner and he did not have enough money
to buy food outside. His insistence on decorating his room with cheap
decorative items also exposes his attempt to hide the dilapidated condition of
it.
However, at the dawn of the mess culture, there was no provision for
female students. All contemporary literature, fiction or non-fiction, only
centre around the hardships of the male students. Arnab Nag has skillfully
pointed out that since till the late nineteenth century education for women was
frowned upon, there were hardly any female students in the colleges, let alone
from the villages. In 1883, when Chandramukhi Basu and Kadambini Basu became
the first female graduates from Calcutta University, they belonged to a very
specific class of affluent Bangalis of Calcutta, who did not need lodging
houses. The 1953 Bengali film, Sharey Chuattar, showcases the genuine
horror and curiosity of the male boarders, when a female student (Suchitra Sen
as Romola) comes to stay with her family at the mess. However female boarders
at the mess were not completely unheard of. In Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay’s
Byomkesh Bakshi series, a married Byomkesh brings Satyabati at a mess of
Harrison Road. However, there is a clear demarcation between the mess for
students and mess for working professionals. It is the latter that also
occasionally harboured the family members of the boarders. A change in the
gender dynamics of the mess culture could be sensed in the late twentieth century.
The 1973 film, Basanta Bilap showed a mess exclusively for female
working professionals. This need for messes for women can be directly linked to
the post-Partition rise of female workers in the urban spaces.
In the twentieth century, the mess-baris of Calcutta also occupied a
significant place for providing shelter to the students actively engaged in
Swadeshi movements. As it was easy to confuse the police by taking shelter at a
friend’s mess, it became increasingly difficult for the police to locate the
tagged student like a needle in a haystack. This tradition of carrying forward
the revolution through the protection of the numerous messes, was later also
borrowed by the students during the Naxalite movements. Samaresh Majumdar’s Garbhadharini (1971) and Kalbela (1981)
realistically depicts such instances.
Although the mess-system of Calcutta preceded even the hostels, it
helped in creating a certain kind of self-reliance among the students, that the
hostels could not as the primary needs of the students of a hostel were taken
care of by concerned authorities. With a lack of disciplinarian bindings, these
students of mess-baris had to be responsible for their actions from the very
onset of their adulthood. Moreover, the fictional and filmy representations of
the mess have repeatedly focused on how despite the deplorable condition of
living, the mess-baris have created a unique bond among their boarders. These
mess-baris that constitute some of the oldest standing buildings of North sand
Central Calcutta, thus, became not only repositories of history, but also of
generational memory.
References:
- Basu, D. “Sheykaler
student mess”. In Bandyopadhyay, S. (ed.), Mess-Hostel Ghotito E Bangali Jeebon.
Suprakash, Kolkata, 2022.
- Bandyopadhyay, B. Aparajito. Mitra & Ghosh, Kolkata, 1931.
- Bandyopadhyay, S. Sharadindu Shamagra. Vol. 1, Ananda, Kolkata, 1970.
- Chakraborty, B. “Education in the metropolis: A costly venture for mofussil students”. In Chakraborty, B. and S. De (eds.), Calcutta in the Nineteenth Century: An Archival Exploration. Niyogi Books, New Delhi, 2018.
- Dey, N. Sharey
Chuattar. M.P. Production Pvt. Ltd., 1953.
- Gupta, D. Basanta
Bilap. Sonali Productions, 1973.
- Majumdar,
S. Garbhadharini. Mitra & Ghosh, Kolkata, 1971.
- Majumdar,
S. Kalbela. Ananda, Kolkata, 1981.
- Nag, A. “Smriti
sottwa samayikpatre sheykaler Kolkatar mess-jeebon”. In Bandyopadhyay, S. (ed.), Mess-Hostel
Ghotito E Bangali Jeebon. Suprakash, Kolkata, 2022.
Shreya Das is a PhD scholar and Guest Faculty at the Sanskrit College and University.
Email: das.shreya97@gmail.com
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