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“You just arrived and will leave tomorrow morning? What will you see as a tourist then?” the hotel receptionist was confused when he handed me the room key.
I explained to him I was not in Khulna to visit the Sundarbans or other local attractions like the average tourist. It was a brief stopover on my train adventure to retrace some colonial-era routes in Bangladesh, which was part of British India then. I also got a Tk 100 discount after convincing him the room was unlikely to be booked at this hour.
It was twilight outside. The Dhaka-Khulna ride by Sundarban Express was the first part of my two-day adventure, which I started from the Kamalapur Railway Station on a fine September morning. This route bridges Bangladesh’s oldest and newest railway eras as trains hurtle on the most modern Padma Bridge and also rattle along the very first line opened during British rule.
Leaving Dhaka and the Narayanganj industrial city behind, the train reached the Padma River shoreline in Mawa on elevated tracks. It was my first time crossing the river by train, and I could not get enough of it against a background of scattered cloud banks floating in the blue sky. The rumbling of the locomotive reached a deafening crescendo as the train ran at breakneck speed.
Then emerged the Bhanga station, linking the new Dhaka-Jashore route and the Faridpur-Rajbari line first opened during the British Raj. We continued on the latter and crossed the Pachuria station that has a connection to Goalanda. The Goalanda Ghat station was the terminus of the major Kolkata-Goalanda colonial route.
The line was built in three phases - from Kolkata to Ranaghat in September 1862, from Ranaghat to Kushtia via Darshana two months later, and from Kushtia to Goalanda via Rajbari in 1871. Darshana-Kushtia thus became the first line in today’s Bangladesh. The Kushtia-Goalanda section was built to connect Kolkata, the capital and administrative centre of British India, to Dhaka, which was a thriving jute trade centre.
But there was no bridge on the Padma. East Bengal Express would carry passengers from Kolkata to Goalanda, a major water transport hub near the confluence of the Padma and Jamuna rivers, and they would then take steamers to Narayanganj and further on to Dhaka. Rail connectivity greatly increased the importance of Goalanda, and the station was of European standards.
Gazing out the window, I could see green crop fields and rural life. In my Shovon Chair compartment with reclining seats, young couples chattered and giggled, parents with children relished family time, and solo souls were mostly on their phones. Hawkers offered an assortment of merchandise from tea to crisps to wristwatches to earphones, turning the carriage into a mini market on wheels.
When the demand for indigo boomed in Britain’s textile industry in the latter half of the 18th century, the East India Company spurred an indigo industry in some areas of Bengal, including Kushtia. The soil was conducive to indigo cultivation, which expanded rapidly, enabling the planters to make big profits. Thus began a dark chapter of the British exploitation of peasants, who were even tortured for refusing to grow indigo.
It was against this backdrop that the 1859-60 Blue Rebellion was staged in Kushtia first. It resulted in the formation of the Indigo Commission and the Indigo Act’s enactment. I remembered the history as the train clanked on the Gorai Railway Bridge, built during the Kushtia-Goalanda line’s construction, before halting at the Kushtia Court station.
We then headed to the Darshana border town on Bangladesh’s very first line. Jagati, the country’s first station, was on the line, but the train did not stop there. Darshana’s proximity to Kolkata helped it develop fast as an industrial town back then.
The final leg of my first day’s journey was from Darshana to Khulna via Jashore, but the Darshana-Jashore section did not exist until 1951. Trains would earlier run on the Kolkata-Benapole-Jashore-Khulna route opened in 1882-84, but were suspended after the partition of India. The East Pakistan government then built the Darshana-Jashore line, connecting Khulna with Darshana and further northwest.
The next day’s schedule was to explore this northwest route up to the Chilahati border station in Nilphamari. The receptionist, who could not grasp the full extent of my adventure, suggested I at least visit the Khan Jahan Ali Bridge on the Rupsa River in the evening to see its illuminated face. But I was tired to the point that having a shower and throwing myself on the bed was far more appealing.
Boarding Rupsha Express at the Khulna station the next morning, I retraced yesterday’s route up to the Poradaha junction, stepping out at several stations to glance at the surroundings and take photos. The two-storey, red-brick Alamdanga station building in Chuadanga stood out as a timeless, impressive structure featuring both British and Mughal architectures. It was initially used as an indigo cultivation centre, with British planters occupying the first floor.
Of the major routes the British built in East Bengal, three originated in Kolkata - Kolkata-Goalanda, Kolkata-Khulna, and Kolkata-Darshana-Poradaha-Santahar-Chilahati. The Kolkata-Chilahati line was built up to Siliguri, the gateway to northeast India. Intercity trains from Dhaka now run up to Chilahati and Khulna, and a service operates between these two places on opposite sides of the map, making it one of the longest routes.
The mighty Padma had always been one great barrier to road and rail connectivity in East Bengal. That is why a direct Kolkata-Dhaka rail link was not possible, and Goalanda was used as a transit. The same problem emerged during the Kolkata-Siliguri line’s construction in the 1870s.
This journey was then also divided into two parts. Passengers would travel from Kolkata to Kushtia’s Damukdia Ghat and cross it by steam-powered ferries to reach Sara Ghat in Ishurdi. The second lap was from Sara Ghat to Siliguri via Natore, Parbatipur, and Chilahati.
To solve this problem, constructing the first rail bridge on the Padma was discussed, which dragged on for some 20 years. After extensive scrutiny, the British finally built the iconic 1.8km Hardinge Bridge and opened it to traffic in 1915, connecting Pabna and Kushtia. This was a giant leap in rail connections in that region, while connectivity with central and eastern parts continued to hinge on the time-consuming ferries.
A bespectacled man suggested I film the Rooppur nuclear power plant as I stood at the gate, carefully holding a GoPro camera. He advised me to check the map so that I would not miss it. “It is beautiful, and so is the Chalan Beel,” he asserted.
Indeed, it was beautiful. The plant’s four hyperboloid cooling towers became visible as the train chugged on the Hardinge Bridge, moving parallel to the Lalon Shah Bridge built for road traffic. From a distance, they looked like some kind of giant storehouses, standing next to the river behind small and big trees in a town dubbed “the mini-Russia in Bangladesh.”
Occasional waterbodies added to the mix of landscapes as the train rolled on broad-gauge and dual-gauge tracks. And there it unfolded gradually, the Halti Beel, stretching to the horizon, with some boats anchored at the edge and lift nets set up by fishermen. It is part of the Chalan Beel, the country’s largest beel that becomes a tourism hotspot in the monsoon.
The long journey exhausted me, but I was buoyed by sheer excitement, catching a glimpse of life in India’s Hili village as the train skirted the border in Dinajpur. I took naps but did not doze off. Biscuits, fruit cakes, breads, lychee jelly, ice cream, and soft drinks worked like appetisers, intensifying my hunger for a hearty meal, but that was not available on board.
Two hours behind schedule, the train arrived in Chilahati in the darkness. The Khulna hotel receptionist would have been bewildered had I phoned him after alighting at the northern station and told him my train to Dhaka would leave in an hour. Well, I waited 15 minutes more as Nilsagar Express was that late.