Forgotten hero from 19th Century Kolkata

A qualified engineer from the Nineteenth Century, and the first Bengali to be so, Nilmani Mitra was the man behind many of Kolkata’s heritage buildings. At a time when the colonial builders were busy changing the skyline of the white town of Calcutta, Mr Mitra architected some of the historic buildings in North Kolkata, which competed in their grandeur with the British contemporaries. The following report in The Telegraph last week brought the story to our attention, only to make us realise how little we remember, or even ever heard, of such gifted people and proud moments from our own history. The least we could do is to amplify the message. So here it is: