LUMDING RAIL COLONY : BRICKFIELD COLONY

||| LUMDING RAIL COLONIES : LUMDING |||                                                                                ©subhankar_karmakar

BRICKFIELD COLONY OF LUMDING:

©subhankar_karmakar

NEAR BMB HIGH SCHOOL; LUMDING

As Lumding was developed as the residential place for British Railway Officers, a number of colonies were built in Lumding. There were substantial numbers of Indian Officials and Labours in Railways as well. So, residential places of these peoples were also been constructed and was known as colonies even.

At present there are numbers of colonies in Lumding, like Officer's Colony, South hills colony, New Colony, Kamakhya Colony, Account's Colony, Nadir paar last Colony, Institute Colony, Brick Field Colony, Relief yards Colony. Surprisingly, the residential places of the Clerical Grades and other lower level officials is known as Babu Patty, and does not bear the colony tag. This is a question which I could not solve in my childhood. During British Rules the Indian semi-English Educated persons were known as Babu, even their broken English got a tag name as Babu English. They were a powerful lobby, so they sought a somewhat different name and most probably due to this reason, they named it as Babu Patty. The word Patty is a substitute for colony in vernacular language.

LUMDING AND ITS NUMEROUS CLUBS:

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BRICKFIELD COLONY

I was born in Brickfield Colony, Lumding. Our Railway Qtrs. No. was E-144/A.... I still remember my early childhood in Brickfield Colony. We had always maintained a strong relation with that colony although the tie is almost been faded up now. As my father was also born there, we were one of the oldest inhabitants of that place. I have some pleasant memories of my childhood in this colony. How can I forget my childhood that was so sweet? I have so many memories, so sweet memories of my child, I would never forget those. Sujit, Raju, Bura, Kanika, Sajal so many faces, so many memories. Our adjacent quarter was belonged to Sujit's family. His father Late Niranjan Karmakar was a driver in Indian Railways. Their family was so closed to us, we used to spend our day time in their garden playing so many games. I remember his sisters Laxmi, Saraswati, Mamata, Mamoni and his younger brother Sanjib,

I still remember that sanjib had asthmatic problems. I was particularly very closed to Sujit and his 2nd eldest sister, Saraswati, really I miss them too. Then there was Bura's family members. Their family was an unique family. His mother was a fan of Bengali stories and novels and they had a huge collections of many bengali magazines and Sharadiya special issues of Desh, Nabakallol, Kishore Gyan Bigyan and Ananda Bazar Patrika special issues. His second eldest brother Atulda was an inspiration to me. He is at present in NIT Durgapur teaching civil engineering there. Then there was Soma, Susmita Mazumder. She had been married to Rajesh Chowdhury.



There is a strong club culture in the entire Lumding, and this colony is not an exception. Brickfield colony got its own club in 1967 and it was named as "Youbak Sangha" which means the club of the youths in Bengali. The 95% of the total populations in Brickfield colony at that time were Bengalis, although it's a mixed population now in that colony. We were one of the active families involved in the club. My uncle was cashier of that club for long 16 years. During the late '60s and early '70s the club could muster enough reputation due to the social works and activities the club was involved with. As the time passes by, the course of actions of the club have started to deteriorate and soon it lost its former glory in the late '90s. Brickfield colony always had a strong and profound influences on my psyche, a kind of feeling, a feeling of posession.