For the present generations of the Bhattacharyyas rooted in Narit of Howrah’s Amta, Durga Puja is not only about observing a three-century-old tradition but also a time to bask in the legacy of luminaries from the lineage.

Foremost among them was 19th century educator-reformer Mahamahopadhyay Pandit Mahesh Chandra Nyayratna Bhattacharyya, CIE, who left his imprint on the Bengal Renaissance.

The Durga Puja at his ancestral residence, around 50km from the heart of Calcutta, brings together members of the clan from all over the world and local residents alike, who participate in the rituals and the celebrations, treating the festivities as an occasion to pay tribute to Mahesh Chandra Nyayratna.

Durga Puja underway at Narit, Howrah

The deity has a striking feature: Kartik is placed to the right of Durga and Ganesh to her left. The Kolabou stands beside Kartik instead of Ganesh. The exact reason for this unusual placement has long been forgotten in the Puja that purportedly began when Murshid Quli Khan was the Nawab of Bengal and Aurangzeb’s great-grandson Farrukhsiyar was the Mughal Emperor of India in the second decade of the 18th century.

The clan, tracing its ancestry to the five Brahmin families believed to have arrived in Bengal from Kannauj in the 11th century, settled in Narit about three centuries ago when the Burdwan royals gifted them the village and asked them to start socio-educational endeavours there, besides a Durga Puja.

A son of Harinarayan Tarka Siddhanta — and nephew of Guruprasad Tarka Panchanan and Thakurdas Churamani — Mahesh Chandra Nyayratna, born on February 22, 1836, was part of this family’s 13th generation.

A lifelong friend-cum-colleague of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, he combined classical erudition in Sanskrit education with a progressive outlook. Known as one of the foremost scholars of the time, he was appointed the fourth principal of the Sanskrit College in 1876 (which he remained till 1895, 11 years prior to his demise), after Vidyasagar, E.B. Cowell and Prasanna Kumar Sarbadhikary.

He introduced the graded Sanskrit title examinations, wrote or edited Kavya Prakash, Mimansa Darshan and the Krishna Yajur Veda, and was an honorary member of the governing bodies over a dozen major academic institutions in India and Europe.

Under Queen Victoria, he was made a Companion of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in 1881. The title of Mahamahopadhyaya was conferred on 1887 on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of Victoria’s reign for his eminence in Oriental learning which entitled him to take rank in the Durbar immediately after the titular Rajas and Nawabs.

“Many of his descendants, such as all three sons Manmatha Nath, Munindra Nath and Mahima Nath left their mark in the rich history of Calcutta of the 19th-20th centuries. The list of their friendships, professional or social associations comprised the who’s who of Bengal at the time. Manmatha Nath, for instance, was as close to Swami Vivekananda from their student days as Mahesh Chandra was to Vidyasagar,” said Ruchira Mookerjee nee Bhattacharyya, a great-great-granddaughter of Mahesh Chandra Nyayratna.

In fact, Nayaratna Lane and Manmatha Bhattacharjee Street, intersecting with each other in the north Calcutta’s Shyambazar, are named after Mahesh Chandra Nyayratna and Manmatha Nath, where parts of their main city residence since the mid-19th century remain standing.

The family folklore of the Bhattacharyyas is replete with anecdotes of close ties with the Jorasanko Tagores, the Burdwan Raj, the Shobhabazar Debs, the Cossimbazar Raj, the Pathuriaghata Mullicks, the Mahishadal Raj, Viceroys Lord Lytton, Lord Ripon, Lord Dufferin, and Lord Lansdowne, Nawab Abdul Latif, Keshab Chandra Sen, W.C. Bonnerjee, and Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose.

“Indubitably, they were among the most influential families of Calcutta at the time, from which the undivided South Asian Empire of the British Raj, stretching from Aden to Singapore, used to be ruled. They wielded considerable soft power, but kept a low profile, and primarily utilised that influence in education and reform, even infrastructure uplift,” said Rakhee Roy nee Bhattacharyya, a great-great granddaughter of Mahesh Chandra Nyayratna.

Vidyasagar and Vivekananda are believed to have visited the Puja at Narit.

Shishir Bhattacharyya, among the senior-most members of one of the many wings the clan, who still takes active interest in Narit and the puja, proudly recalled how Mahesh Chandra Nyayratna’s granddaughter — Manmatha Nath’s daughter — was one of the nine first-ever Kumaris at the Belur Math in 1901, where Swami Vivekananda performed the Kumari Puja.

The Puja has come a long way, through many a crest and trough, from the early years during the rule of Murshid Quli Khan — when the family had to actually travel to Murshidabad each year to seek permission for the ceremony — to active administrative patronage during the British Raj, to political neglect after Independence.

“We were raised on a regular diet of such tales that are awe-inspiring and sometimes a little saddening. The family is now widely scattered all over the country and the world, and only a handful are able to visit,” said Anindya Kumar Bhattacharyya, a young descendant who participates in the Puja diligently every year.

“One big family reunion on the occasion of Durga Puja here is overdue by decades.”

Three centuries on, as this year’s Durga Puja begins, the beating of the dhak in the Bhattacharyya household of Narit continues to evoke pride and nostalgia.