The Legendary Sir Rajendranath Mookerjee

Back of the Book Civic pride is a matter of slow growth and a persistent educative effort is necessary to develop civic consciousness. The Calcutta Municipal Gazette deserves to be congratulated on its virile and praiseworthy efforts in this direction. It is performing a particularly useful service through its Health Numbers. The menace of disease and epidemic, which continuously threatens a congested city built around marshy land, has to be fought with vigour and knowledge. To spread amongst fellow-citizens this essential and useful knowledge as well as induce them to develop civic consciousness is no mean aim. I, accordingly wish the "Calcutta Municipal Gazette" many years of continued prosperity and success in its noble efforts.

Foreword Rajendranath Mookerjee, known more as Sir R. N. Mookerjee, famous in his life time for being a great engineer - one who had the distinction of constructing among other landmark buildings in the city of Calcutta the Victoria Memorial Hall, Sri Sri Ramakrishna Temple at Belur, Howrah by his company Martin & Co. in partnership with a fine English gentleman, Sir Thomas Acquin Martin and of conceptualizing as Chairman of the Howrah Bridge Committee in 1921 of a cantilever bridge across the river Hoogly, linking as it were the two architectural marvels- one an imposing, stately, marble white, regal memorial built in the western mould; the other, an ochre colored temple of high devotion made of chunar stone, a monumental 'symphony of architecture' representing fusion of all faiths; a self-made, illustrious and the most successful Bengali industrialist; above all, a man simple at heart with its tentacles rooted, so to say, to the soil of his birth place, but who had imbibed the best of western excellence specially in the field of science and technology and business organization for the growth and prosperity of his country - is all but forgotten now.

A faint curiosity as to the existence of a Bengali business man worth the name, modern and successful in every respect and the reading of a fabulous biography given to me by my friends at the Martin & Burn office ignited my interest. It led me on, in the midst of my other occupations, to study and undertake further research to unfold the various facets of the persona of Sir R. N.

During the course of investigations, a lot of materials was found available in the old newspapers pertaining to the later part of Rajendranath's life. News of the Civic Reception accorded to him by the Corporation of Calcutta on his 80th Birthday led me to rummage through the pages of the bound volumes of the Calcutta Municipal Gazette of the relevant years edited by the doyen of journalists, Sri Amal Home.

And I was fortunate and delighted to lay my hands on the extremely informative and profusely illustrated Special Number of Sir Rajendranath and the issue published following his demise. Since then, I was burning with desire to reprint the same for bringing it to the knowledge of all.

The cherished dream got fulfilled with the Kolkata Municipal Corporation agreeing to publish these two volumes together on the eve of his 160th Birth Anniversary. My grateful thanks to the Municipal Authorities, the Information and Public Relations Department, the versatile editor of Purashree (the present Bengali Mouth Piece of KMC), Sri Arun Kumar Roy, in particular, for all their help and guidance.

Heartfelt thanks are also due to the Librarian and Staff of National Library, both at Alipore and Esplanade; the Calcutta Town Hall Museum Library personnel for their excellent facilities and to Sri Pranab Goswami, the Librarian of Advaita Ashrama Library for providing valuable materials.

I will be failing in my duty if I do not own up, in this connection, my debt to many friends of the print media who have helped reviving people's interest in Rajendranath Mookerjee by publishing quite a number of articles of mine and evinced keen interest in the progress of my work. Sri Kaushik Rana, my son, who along with me has designed the website httpsilsites.google.com.1 site/mookerjeesofbengal/ and continues to assist me in my work - deserves mention.

Last but not the least; mention must also be made of Sri Parthasarathi Sarkar and Sri Biswanath Rakshit of Desktop Printers for completing the herculean task of bringing out the book within the shortest possible time.

Let me conclude with the sincere belief and prayer that this memorial monograph will turn the wheels and the countrywide celebrations of Rajendranath's 160th Birth Anniversary starting from June 23rd, 2013 will definitely bring back Bengal's lost glory in industrialization.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages