Ghosts of jute wallahs

“Alexandra jute mill, west Bengal, was commissioned almost 160 years ago,” emails Kenneth Miln, “and recent information implies that it may be haunted.

“With some experience of Alexandra compound this does not come as a surprise: located at a wide bend on the east bank of the river Hooghly, the mill’s jute wallah staff were housed in a series of bungalows within a stone’s throw of the river. Alexandra jute mill remained fully operational during the Second World War and up to the 1950s, after which the place was left to the ravages of time, a monsoon climate and encroaching tropical vegetation.

“Even before closing down, the compound presented a peculiarly eerie aspect; more so during full moon nights when rays, reflected by the Hooghly’s surface, shone through palm and mango trees to produce strange flickering images on the compound’s old buildings.

“As a school lad living with my jute wallah parents on a neighbouring mill compound in the 1940s, I used to pay frequent visits to Alexandra compound, where my uncle David Mathew was engineering manager. However, the main reason for my visits was to try to catch a very large fish (locally known as a catla) which could, at certain times, be observed swimming around Alexandra mill’s reservoir tank.

“Do I spy in my mind’s eye, the ghosts of old jute wallahs, including a young ghost complete with fishingrod, walking through the gloomy old compound? The changes to many old mill compounds in Bengal are extreme, indeed some of these old compounds resemble the ancient ruins of a long lost civilisation.”