Lalbag fort
Ahsan Monjil
ahsan monjil আহসান মঞ্জিল
Ahsan Manzil (Bengali: আহসান মঞ্জিল) was the official residential palace and seat of the Dhaka Nawab Family. It is situated on the banks of the Buriganga River. The palace is now a museum.
Early History
The palace has enjoyed a varied history, starting from being Rang Mahal (of Sheikh Enayetullah, a Zamindar of Jamalpur pargana (Barisal) during the time of the Mughals) to a French trading centre. Nawab Khwaja Alimullah bought it from the French in 1830 and converted it into his residence, effecting necessary reconstruction and renovations. The final reconstruction was done by Martin & Company, a European construction and engineering firm, at the behest of Nawab Khwaja Abdul Ghani, who converted this house into the official Nawabi residence.
Construction
The construction of the palace was begun in 1859 and completed in 1872. Abdul Ghani named it Ahsan Manzil after his son Nawab Khwaja Ahsanullah. The newly built palace first came to be known as the Rang Mahal. On April 7, 1888, a tornado caused severe damage to Ahsan Manzil -- Andar Mahal, the older part of the palace, was completely devastated. During the reconstruction of the Andar Mahal a good part of the palace was overhauled and repaired, and the exquisite dome of the present Rang Mahal was added. Ahsan Manzil was again damaged by an earthquake in 12 June 1897 and again repaired by the Nawab Ahsanullah.
Glory days
Nawab Sir Salimullah with his family in front of Ahsan Manzil
Nawab Sir Salimullah with his family in front of Ahsan Manzil
In 1874, Lord Northbrook, Governor General of India attended an evening function in the palace when he came to lay the foundation of a water works installed by Nawab Abdul Ghani. In 1888, Lord Dufferin also accepted the hospitality offered at Ahsan Manzil. In 1904 Lord Curzon, on a visit to East Bengal, stayed in this palace on 18 and 19 February to win public support for the proposed Partition of Bengal.
Almost all political activities of Nawab Khwaja Salimullah centred round this palace. Ahsan Manzil was the cradle of the All India Muslim League. With the decline of the Nawabs of Dhaka, Ahsan Manzil also started to decline.
Decline
When in 1952 the Dhaka Nawab State was acquired under the East Bengal Estate Acquisition Act, it became impossible for the successors of the Nawabs to maintain the palace due to financial constraints. Nawab Khwaja Habibullah started living at Paribag Green House soon after the acquisition of the zamindari. The palace was soon on the verge of collapse as successors rented out rooms without considering its dignity. Over the years illegal occupants turned the place into a filthy slum.
Renovation
Recognising the historical and architectural importance of the Ahsan Manzil, the government of Bangladesh took the initiative to renovate it. In 1985 Ahsan Manzil and its surroundings were acquired. After the completion of the renovation work in 1992 under the supervision of the Directorate of Public Works and Architecture, it was brought under the control of Bangladesh National Museum (20 September 1992). A museum has been established there.
Description
Ahsan Manzil has now been converted into a museum and a popular tourist attraction of old Dhaka.
Ahsan Manzil has now been converted into a museum and a popular tourist attraction of old Dhaka.
Ahsan Manzil is one of the most significant architectural monuments of Bangladesh. Established on a raised platform of 1 metre, the two-storied palace measures 125.4 m by 28.75 m. The height of the ground floor is 5 metres and that of the first floor 5.8 metres. There are porticos the height of the ground floor, both on the northern and southern sides of the palace. An open spacious stairway comes down from the southern portico, extending onto the bank of the river through the front garden. There was once a fountain in the garden in front of the stairs, that does not exist today. The spacious north and south verandas of both the floors rest on semicircular arches. The verandas and rooms are covered with marble.
To construct the dome of Ahsan Manzil, the square room on the ground floor was given a round shape with brickwork in the corners. The room was then given an octagonal shape near the roof by squinches. This octagonal shape took the form of the drum of the dome. Finally, the kumud kali (buds of lotus) shaped dome was constructed by gradually slanting the eight corners to the peak. The dome is 27.13 m above the ground.
Mahasthangarh in Bogura
It is considered the oldest archaeological site of the county. It is located at a distance of 18 km north or Bogra town on the western bank of the Karatoa river. The spectacular site is an imposing landmark in the area. having a long fortified enclosure. Beyond the fortified area, other ancient ruins fan out within a semicircle of about 8 km radius. Several isolated mounds, the local names of which are Govinda Bhita Temple, Khodia Pathar Mound, Mankalir Kunda,Parsuramer Bedi, Jiyat Kunda etc. surround the fortified city. This 3rd century B.C. archaeological site is still held to be of great sanctity by the Hindus. Every year (mid-April) and once every 12 years (in December) thousands of Hindu devotees join the bathing ceremony on the bank of the Karatoa river.
A visit to the Mahasthangarh site museum will acquaint tourists with wide variety or antiquities, ranging form terracotta objects to gold ornaments and coins recovered from the site. Also noteworthy are the shrine or Shah Sultan Bulki Mahisawaiy and Gokul Medh in the neighbourhood of Mahasthangarh.
Kuthibari of Nobel Laureate Poet Rabindranath Tagore
Shilaidaha Kuthibadi a historic place associated with RABINDRANATH TAGORE and a tourist spot. It stands on the south bank of the river Padma in Kumarkhali upazila in Kushtia district and is five miles north of the district headquarters across the Gadai and opposite to the Pabna town on farther north across the Padma. Shilaidaha is also famous for the kachhari (office) of the Birahimpur zamindari and the historic kuthibadi of the Tagore family of Jorasanko.
Shilaidaha is a relatively modern name; its old name was Khorshedpur. Before the Thakurs of Jorasanko acquired the village in the middle of the 19th century there stood an indigo-Kuthi reportedly built by a planter, named Shelly. A deep daha (whirlpool) was formed there at the confluence of the Gadai and the Padma, and hence the village came to be known as 'Shelly-daha', which ultimately took the form of 'Silaidaha'. DWARKANATH TAGORE, grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore, became the owner of this zamindari in 1807 by means of a will executed in his favour by Ramlochan Tagore. Rabindranath assumed the responsibility of looking after the zamindari and came to Shilaidaha for the first time in November 1889.
Rabindranath Tagore in his adolescence and even later occasionally stayed there during his periodic inspection of the zamindari estate. But later the Padma began to devour its banks during high flood close to the old Kuthibadi. Alarmed at the devastating erosion it was dismantled and its building materials were used for the erection of the new Kuthibadi. There the poet lived for more than a decade at irregular intervals between 1891 and 1901. During his stay there, eminent scientists, litterateurs and intelligentsia of Bengal such as Sir JAGADISH CHANDRA BOSE, DWIJENDRALAL ROY, PRAMATHA CHOWDHURY, MOHITLAL MAJUMDER, Lokendranath Palit visited him on various occasions. Sitting at his desk in the Kuthibadi or on a boat on the Padma, Rabindranath wrote a number of masterpieces: Sonar Tari, Chitra, Chaitali, Katha O Kahini, Ksanika, most of the poems of Naibedya and Kheya, and the songs of GITANJALI and Gitimalya. It was here, in 1912, that the poet started his translation of Gitanjali into English, which earned him the Nobel Prize in 1913. Rabindranath had a deep attachment for Shilaidaha and the Padma, which is evident in his Chhinna Patrabali. The poet once wrote in a letter, 'The holy place of my literary pursuits during my youth and middle age was the village of Shilaidaha kissed by the waves of the Padma'.
Kuthibadi is a picturesque three-storied terraced bungalow, constructed with brick, timber, corrugated tin sheets and Raniganj tiles. Silaidaha Kuthibadi is nestled within about eleven acres of beautiful orchards of mango, jackfruit and other evergreen trees, a flower garden and two ponds. Silaidaha has an enchanting natural beauty and rural landscape. The Villa, enclosed within a boundary wall, is entered through a simple but attractive gateway on the south. It accommodates about 15 apartments of various sizes with a large central hall on the ground and the first floors. Each of the open terraces on the ground and the first floors is partly covered with a sloping roof of Raniganj tiles, while the central part over the ground floor has a pitched roof with gable ends. A short pyramidal crest farther variegates the roof over the second storey. Silaidaha Kuthibadi is now a protected national monument where a Thakur Memorial Museum has been established by the government.
Rabindranath started his experimental work with village development and modern methods of cultivation at Shilaidaha, which he later undertook at PATISAR. He established a primary school there in the name of Pratima Devi, his daughter-in-law.
The birth and death anniversaries of the poet are observed at Silaidaha on a national level on 25 Baishakh and 22 Shraban respectively. Many scholars from home and abroad attend these celebrations and take part in discussions on the life and works of Rabindranath. Cultural functions follow, during which prominent artistes present TAGORE SONGS
Sonargaon- the oldest capital of Bengal
Sonargaon's importance in the pre-Muslim period is borne out by its ancient name of Suvarnagrama (the golden village), from which it is obvious how the Muslim version of the name is derived, as well as by the existence of Langalbandh and Panchamighat, the two traditional holy bathing places of the Hindus, in this tract of land on the west bank of the old Brahmaputra. Sonargaon rose to be the seat of an independent ruler under Ghiyasuddin Bahadur Shah, and after his fall it was the headquarters of the eastern province of Bengal under the Tughlaqs till 1338. Sonargaon emerged as the capital of an independent Sultanate under Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah (1338-1349). In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Panam Nagar was developed in a part of medieval Sonargaon.
By the second Quarter of the fourteenth century AD Sonargaon had developed into a commercial metropolis; seafaring boats could easily reach Sonargaon from west Asian and southeast Asian countries. Ibn Batuta describes Sonargaon as an important port city, which had direct commercial relations with countries like China, Indonesia (Java) and the Maldives. Muslin produced in Sonargaon, especially its finest variety called khasa, had a worldwide reputation. With the loss of political status in the second decade of the seventeenth century AD Sonargaon gradually lost its commercial importance as well. It again rose to some eminence in the nineteenth century AD when Panam Nagar was established as a trading centre in cotton fabrics, chiefly English piece goods. Sonargaon developed into a seat of Islamic learning under the versatile scholar Maulana Sharfuddin Abu Tawwamah of Bokhara who came to Sonargaon sometime between 1282 and 1287 and established a Khanqah and madrasa wherein all branches of Islamic learning as well as secular sciences were taught and studied.
World War II Cemetery in Chittagong
Second World War warrior’s graveyards are in this Cemetery. There are 755 graves in this graveyard of the great warriors who died d in world war from1939 to 1945 in Chittagong areas. In this well-preserved cemetery at a quiet and picturesque place within the city lie buried in eternal peace over 700 soldiers from British, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, Myanmar, East and West Africa, The Netherlands and Japan who laid down their lives on the Myanmar front during the World War II. Every year a number of tourists come here to visit this Cemetery.
World War II Cemetery in Comilla
Second World War warrior’s graveyards are in this Cemetery. There are 755 graves in this graveyard of the great warriors who died d in world war from1939 to 1945 in Chittagong and Comilla areas. In this well-preserved cemetery at a quiet and picturesque place within the city lie buried in eternal peace over 700 soldiers from British, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, Myanmar, East and West Africa, The Netherlands and Japan who laid down their lives on the Myanmar front during the World War II. Every year a number of tourists come here to visit this Cemetery.
