History as a subject in my high school, never inspired me to think and imagine about the incidents of yore. Many years later, today I am drawn towards the history of the Dutch in India to know about the connection between my motherland, India and The Netherlands, the country of my visit. While in search for the Indo-Dutch historic connection, I came to know about a historic Dutch settlement, near my place of residence in India. This information acted as a catalyst and enhanced my enthusiasm to know more about the history of the Indo-Dutch ties.

Before the British came to India, a group of merchants landed on the Southern part of India to trade textiles, spices, opium, gems and indigo dye. They challenged the Portuguese monopoly of trading in the East and at the same time engaged in colonial activities. The Dutch India Company, years before the East India Company, became the richest private company in the 17th Century world.

I was amazed in my imagination of how Dutch merchants established their businesses in my native land with their trading skill 400 years back. During Holland's 'Golden Age' (or 'Golden Century'), the Dutch East India Company (VOC) fleet plied the seven seas and returned to India with precious commodities from Middleburg, Hoorn, Amsterdam. Exotic spices such as pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and mace were sold at huge profits. During this period of time, hundreds of ships voyaged with thousands of Dutch people.

In West Bengal, India there were two large Dutch settlements on the banks of the Hooghly River, one at Chinsurah, Hooghly and the other at Cossimbazar, Murshidabad. A visit to Chinsurah revealed that once a thriving trading post is now a small suburb with a number of architectures from the time of the Dutch. With these architectures, the town has a pervading sense of journey through time. And, what is still left from the past is the Dutch cemetery.

It was a mid-June hot and humid Indian summer afternoon, when I visited the 18-19th century Dutch cemetery. I witnessed twenty-four prominent graves and many more less prominent graves where the Dutch souls were resting in peace. In a profuse emotional provocation, I was imagining the life of the people resting there, about their near and dear ones, about their descendants and if they are still remembered by their fellow countrymen!  

The sun was setting down and the twilight was as beautiful as my emotional experience there. I put a wild flower on a grave and someone whispered in my ears, “please meet and tell about us to our countrymen, to our descendants.”  Today when I am visiting Netherlands, I may come across with someone whose ancestor is resting in peace, in India!

 

I have tried to capture these feelings in the photographs I took at the cemetery. I have combined multiple images to tell different stories that ultimately created a whole narrative. Weathering marks on the outer walls of the graves looked to me like the satellite weather maps of a turbulent sea. A child’s paper boat left floating in the puddle of rain water reminded me of all those people who crossed the oceans and at the end, found their final resting place here. A fallen plaque, in my eyes, merged with a tree and extended beyond its physical space, like the memories that these tombs represent.