How the chhot boat once ruled the sea around Bengal

Boats barely sail in the sea now. But in the sea waters surrounding Bengal, they were once a common sight. Called chhot, the boat had the ability to cut across the waters, ride the waves, and move fast. The V-shaped chhot could sit with ease on the water, and at the same time cut through it to move ahead swiftly.

While the waves of time, drew the chhot out of waters, it is being brought back in reckoning, as a component of the maritime history of India.

Funded by UK’s Endangered Material Knowledge Programme (EMKP) in collaboration with the British Museum, the old-style boat was built over months at Dihimondal Ghat in Shyampur, Howrah. It will eventually be transported to the National Maritime Heritage Museum coming up in Lothal, Gujarat, under the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, which aims to showcase India’s 5000-year-old maritime history going back to the Harappan civilisation.

Swarup Bhattacharyya at a boats exhibition.

The finished chhot is now anchored at the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port in Kolkata.

Meanwhile, a documentary on the process of building it is up on the British Museum’s website (Asia section). Overlooking the project were maritime anthropologists John P. Cooper, Zeeshan Ali Shaikh – both from University of Exeter, and Kolkata’s Swarup Bhattacharyya, social anthropologist with special interest in riverine and maritime culture.

The Shyampur area has a community of boat builders but finding someone knowledgeable enough about the long-defunct chhot proved to be a challenge. The project team, fortunately, found Panchanan Mondal, whose traditional knowledge of boat-building has been handed down through generations.

“In his 70s, my father is too old to physically take part in the process, but he guided us with the nitty-gritties,” says 40-year-old Amol Mondal, Panchanan’s son who was actively involved among others in building the prototype.

Amol adds that “it was great fun” to do something new and rediscover the lost art.

“The chhot was a unique boat, and the only maritime boat of Bengal. It could go against the current and tide over the waves and go into the sea. It was used mainly to carry cargo,” Bhattacharyya shares.

The medial cross-section of the chhot is V-shaped. The shape helps it sit with ease on the water, and at the same time cut through the water.

Talking about the importance of EMKP, Bhattacharyya adds that in the absence of enough documented data on the history of the boats in the subcontinent, the project will familiarise people with something that might have been around for a thousand years before it went out of use.

It is hard to put a date to the existence of chhot.

Though documented historical material is rather scant, it is a fact that India was a maritime nation from ancient times. Besides trading with South-East Asian countries, they also established empires in Cambodia, Thailand, among others. In Bengal, Tamralipta (today’s Tamluk) on the riverbank of the Rupnarayan River, which flowed into the Bay of Bengal, was a famous port even in 3rd century in emperor Ashoka’s time or perhaps even earlier.

Monks sailed from here to South East Asia, Sri Lanka, and areas around to spread Buddha’s message. After the Rupnarayan river changed its course, Tamralipta became unnavigable, and it vanished from the maritime map. But even now, excavations by archaeologists bring up artefacts, even from Roman times, which establish its premier position in ancient times.

Bhattacharyya is also the resource person behind the Boat Museum in Kolkata on the premises of Institute of Cultural Research in the Kakurgachi area of the city. Conceptualised by former CBI joint director Upen Biswas, when he was Minister in-charge of Backward Classes Welfare Department, West Bengal, the Boat Museum displays 46 scaled models of various kinds of indigenous boats. Craftsmen from Dinajpur district built the models under Bhattacharyya’s supervision. Here you can also find some models fashioned from sketches of the colonial times but now extinct. Like the ‘Pinnace’ copied from an 18th century sketch.

When the Boat Museum was launched in 2011-2012, it was the first of its kind in the country though some more have come up since at other centres.

Eastern India has a riverine terrain, and boats as means of transport, for people and cargo, have developed through centuries. Different types of boats were built as per the need, one discovers while visiting the Boat Museum, establishing how each boat has a character of its own. For example, the flat-bottomed ‘Kosa’ boat with its pointed front is suited for the rapid rivers of North Bengal whereas the ‘Dinghi’ is more in use in waters of the Hooghly near Kolkata which flows at a much slower pace.

A chhot boat being constructed.

Then there is the wide, flat-bottomed ‘Khorokisti’, which was meant for transporting khor (hay) in bulk. In contrast, wood-carrying boat, such as the ‘Dholai’ has a much deeper, v-shaped hull. The ‘Masula’ boat is used for fishing and can still be found in coasts of Odisha, and Tamil Nadu among others.

“All this shows that the boat builders, though not educated with engineering degrees, are sharp observers and problem-solvers. They are well conversant with the local topography, community’s need, ecology, and the nature of the river since it differs in nature too,” Bhattacharya points out.

The slim ‘Chhip’ boat is used for boat racing. Bhattacharya rues that though Bengal has had a boat racing tradition, as in Kerala, going back to a century or more, in places like the Sundarbans, Nadia, Murshidabad, north Bengal etc, people are hardly aware of it, even within Bengal. “The races usually coincide with the harvest season. Boat race in our country is usually associated with agriculture and fertility. For example, the next race in Bengal will coincide with Manasa puja; Goddess Manasa is associated with fertility,” he said.

These races, however, can be organised only in smaller streams or beels (big lakes) because rivers with too much current or are too wide are risky for the sport, he says.

“For the riverine countryside, a boat is invaluable – to fish, cross rivers, carry merchandise. The loss of a boat means poverty for the family, hence its importance in their daily life,” he adds.

This is perhaps why in (undivided) Bengal, the boat is not regarded as an inanimate object but a living entity, Bhattacharya observes. Interestingly, the boat has always been compared to the mocha (banana flower), in common parlance in Bengal not only for its similarity to the shape, but also as something relatable to everyday life. Mocha is a popular vegetable used in various curries in Bengal. The almanac is consulted for an auspicious day before the start of building a boat, even the handing it over to the owner after completion has its own ritual.

So, what is special about the Balagarh boats? “Here the builders follow the jor-paddhoti method, i.e. the planks to build the skeleton are joined without using any nails. This method of building boats is not witnessed anywhere else in Bengal. These are all-purpose boats, not for sea, however,” says Chattopadhyaya.

The Sripur-Balagarh area, surrounded by four rivers — the Bhagirathi, Saraswati, Behula and Kana, was the hub of boat making industry in Bengal in the 16th century as fishing was the mainstay of the people. The place is very near to the legendary Saptagram port. When the Portuguese landed in Bengal looking for trade, they entered through Saptagram, a conglomerate of seven grams or villages. There was demand for skilled men to repair their ships or build new ones. Chattopadhyaya talks about Portuguese pirates who also used Balagarh-made boats (between 1795-1845). Later, with the Saraswati River drying up, the importance of Saptagram port declined.

Researchers like Swarup Bhattacharyya and Partha Chattopadhyaya are keen that local people and the young generation discover anew Bengal’s maritime heritage, and that it is not confined to academicians only. Recently, Anandi Art Gallery in Howrah held an exhibition titled ‘swarupe nouko’ curated by Saraswata Santra and Bibhabori Bhattacharyya, his daughter.

Bibhabori is still in school but says seeing her father work in ‘man, boat, relationships’ has inspired her and the exhibition is its culmination. The exhibition attracted people around our neighbourhood who said they did not know Bengal has or had so many boat styles. “Even my classmates visited it and I could see their interest growing after the seeing the models on display,” Bibhabori says happily.

Chattopadhyaya, meanwhile, has taken the initiative to invite skilled boatmen to teach willing students the art of boat building through workshops organised by the college. “The new education policy of the government emphasises the need for imparting vocational training. So why not? The demand for local boats- ‘dinghi’ is still there and these boys once they pass out can start earning instead of waiting for some elusive job,” he reiterates. Till now 49 students have been trained, according to him.

Even in the age of mechanised boats, the demand for local boats is still there. During the monsoon season when the countryside is often flooded, and big boats cannot enter the numerous creeks and streams these are the ones people use to ply and rescue the marooned.

“Boats are connected to human evolution and migration which started much before the wheels took over. As long as there are rivers, there will be boats,” Bhattacharya believes.

“This is our heritage, our culture, our trading tradition and we should not forget it and try to preserve it.”

There is another centuries-old boat-building centre in Bengal with its own unique history in Balagarh in Howrah near Bandel which has a Portuguese church. The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences under its Intellectual Property Law Rights section’s idea bank put forward a proposal for awarding the GI (Geographical Identification) tag to Balagarh boat industry and is under consideration for this year’s list, informs Partha Chattopadhyaya, professor, Balagarh Bijoy Krishna Mahavidyalaya. An avid researcher on local history, he has written the book Hooghly Zelar Nou-shilpa (The boat industry of Hooghly district), and has been advocating for the recognition.