Bridge with a history (and a heart)

Bridge over the River Ganga

Published in the Hindu Sunday Magazine on 7th October 2018 here.

A new bridge has been announced over the Ganga in Banaras. The old one, they say, is close to collapse, and needs an overhaul or rest. Last year, a report found the bridge to be in critical condition. In 2016 it had seen the infamous stampede that resulted in the death of some 20 people.

It’s difficult to put a number to the trains and vehicles that would have crossed the Ganga on the 130-year-old Dufferin Bridge. Two railway tracks, a wide road, foot-paths on either side, and a graceful grandeur matched with robustness. A structure befitting the Ganga and Banaras; not as easy task.

Multiple plaques, a testimony to the structure’s history, tell stories. 

Dufferin Bridge was named after Lord Dufferin who was the Viceroy of India when it was completed. In 1948, it was renamed Malaviya Bridge after Madan Mohan Malaviya, the founder of Banaras Hindu University. It has other names: Rajghat Bridge (for the locality that abuts it) and, my personal favourite since childhood, Double Decker Bridge (because trains run on the lower level and the road runs above). 

In recent months, I have often walked to the Adi Keshav ghat or the Khirkiya ghat to savour the sight of the bridge from there. Here, during godhuli, the hour of cow dust, I eagerly wait for the trains to roll over; the long goods trains or their well-lit and windowed brethren, the passenger trains. Both the ghats are ideal for quiet evenings communing with oneself or with friends you are comfortable sharing silences with. The bridge, the Ganga and the evening lights of Banaras present a sight that is overwhelmingly beautiful yet endearing.

On a morning which saw heavy rains. 

The cycle gives an idea of the size of the structure. 

The trains rumbling over the bridge never fail to add to the picture. A rare phenomenon of a human innovation complementing nature’s offering.  When I walk on the bridge, I have often put my ear on the panels, or my hand on the railing to hear, or just feel, the roar of the trains passing below. It’s like the bridge’s low and steady heartbeat. Winters carry these sounds afar and they are a part of the early morning noises for the people staying in the vicinity.

Edwin Greaves in Kashi the City Illustrious, or Banaras’ writes that “possibly there is not a city in the whole world which presents a more picturesque appearance than does Benaras when viewed from the Ganges, or from the Dufferin Bridge”. John Sergeant, during his 3,000 -mile rail journey for the BBC documentary Tracks of Empire, talks of how the construction of the Dufferin Bridge at Banaras resulted in Victorian technology and ingenuity clashing with ancient religion.

After sunset the lights, a recent addition, show off.

According to engineer F. T. G. Walton’s The Construction of the Dufferin Bridge over the Ganges at Benares’, the bridge was sanctioned in July 1879, commenced in January 1881, tested in September 1887, and formally opened in December 1887. In Indian Railways: The Weaving of a National Tapestry, the authors (Bibek Debroy, Sanjay Chadha and Vidya Krishnamurthi) state that “the Dufferin Bridge connected the lines of the Oudh and the Rohilkhand Railway with those of the East India Company at Mughal Sarai”.

The book also talks of Kipling’s ‘The Bridge Builders’, a story believed to have been based on Dufferin Bridge although its description doesn’t resemble the real one. A paper discussing railway bridges, published in the Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1890, says, “The methods adopted for the erection of the superstructures of the Hawkesbury (another grand bridge built during those times – this in Australia) and Benares bridges, were in each case so admirably adapted to the circumstances, and were happily so successful, that it was not easy to suggest any modification which would have been an improvement”. It adds that “Dufferin Bridge could claim to be the first bridge the superstructure of which was specified to be in steel”. A document found in Krishnamurti Foundation India’s campus at Rajghat says that the engineers who came to re-girder the bridge in the 1930s were stationed in the Foundation’s then new campus.

A washed bridge over a swollen river after rains. 

During rains, I have often walked the bridge, getting drenched and looking with wonder at the water flowing below, its colours always altering. On occasions, the rainfall hides the ghats completely from the view. Some late evenings, I begin cycling and the wheels more often than not lead me to the bridge.

I often wonder if, after the construction of the new bridge, people can have this one, at-least the road part of it, for themselves. May be like a park of sorts, open to all, with possibly nothing more than a few benches. Will governments and bureaucrats give us this? Then, the old bridge can, like it has always done, continue at-least with one of its important tasks; that of connecting people.

Thanks are due to the team at The Hindu and apologies to Pierre Boulle for the title.