Slowly lapping at the fragrant banks of the flower market, tottering over the quaggy steps, the Hooghly nudges at yet another levee of the city. The awed hush around the couch of waters settles in and the dying day breathes out her last. The river has fed herself all day - earthy ashes, mouldering flowers and human ordure; and yet it remains untouched; the virginal Ganga. Now it gives way as ‘Night’s ghostly army’, the many lurking shadows, plunges headfirst into the yielding embankment of Mallick Ghat.
Route: Mallick Ghat is perched on River Ganges connected by Strand Road right beside the Brabourne Road Flyover on the south of Howrah Bridge. As you enter the Strand Bank Road through the Strand Road near the Howrah Bridge cantilevers, meandering through the fascinatingly colourful flower market running along the riverside, you will come across the narrow alley behind a bevy of florists leading to the Mallick Ghat, otherwise shunned from public view.

The Ghat
Popular among Kolkatans as the ‘flower market,’ Mallick Ghat is actually a bathing ghat. A large ornate European-style square pavilion showcases wrought iron vine, thick with foliage, flowers and fruits spun around the pillars, delicate lacy railings and carved pillars which deserve far more attention than they are accorded.
A flight of crumbling stairs descends to the river. Pigeons flock around the shallow water tanks. 
Meanwhile numerous platforms service more than a hundred Odiya pandas (priests), who earn their daily wages by performing small religious rituals for the bathers and devotees of the ghat. The flower sellers, ‘blithe spirits’, also use this refuge – blithely! 
The faint light seeping in and the mild breeze offset voluminous quantities of clothes suspended from ropes obscuring lofty high ceilings. The quintessential gloom is amplified by the stink of rotting flowers and scats.
Completely hidden by the flower stalls, this magnificent structure is hard to discover today. The pavilion is now stifled by infiltrators, greedy pandas and flower vendors, who gorge and suck on this ghat, wringing out the last vestiges of its dignity and beauty. Kolkata Port Trust is working towards bringing some reform.

History
Mallick Ghat is named after the prosperous trader Nemai Charan Mallick. He was engaged in salt trade and established mercantile relations with the overseas merchants of the European States. He distinguished himself as the trusted banker and financial advisor of Sir William Jones, founder of the Asiatic Society, in 1784. He left vast estates to his eight sons. Ram Mohan, the fifth son, founded the ghat sometime in 1855, in memory of his late father.
Anecdotal references in texts like ‘Kolikatar Kotha’ scripted by Pramoth Nath Mallick make for interesting reading. While some of his eight sons owned large residential mansions in various corners of north Kolkata, his eldest son, Ram Gopal, built a sprawling residence at Chitpur, which later housed the Hindu Metropolitan College and Metropolitan Theatre.
It was here that in the aftermath of the historical Widow Remarriage Act of 1856, Umesh Chandra Mitra's historical play ‘Vidhwa Vivah’ was enacted in 1859. The drama troupe was directed by the great Bengali scholar, orator and religious reformer Keshab Chandra Sen. 

Eminent historian, Rudrangshu Mukherjee described the shraddha ceremony of Nemai Charan Mallick where Rs 15000 was donated in addition to gold, silver, palanquins and horses along with community feeding.
An interesting fact lifted from the archival records claims that Sir Bradford Leslie's famous floating Pontoon Bridge, the earlier version of the modern Howrah Bridge, initially set up in 1874, was eliminated by fixing electric poles at the centre using electricity from the dynamo at Mallick Ghat pumping station.

Life at the Ghat
Every day, at the crack of dawn, Mallick Ghat wakes from its quiet slumber. A sea of fiery orange marigold, lush lotus, fragrant rose, vibrant sunflower greet you as you enter. Trampling over mud, mulch, madness, if you manage to reach the ghat, watching the break of the dawn over the heads of those colourful flowers is like watching a Monet spring to life.
A vigorous oil-massage and bath prepare the resident men who then gather for tea near the blue ramshackle shacks. The pandas rush to sell prayers for a fee to the ladies who appear for a dip. The vendors garlanded with their wares, haggle with customers. They also don’t forget to show their love for the river by using her as a kind of giant cesspit to relieve themselves in.

If ever the dark ambience of the ghat unnerves you, simply touch your cheek to the stoic cool of the pillars of the pavilion, tread the leaf-green carpet - and you will realise why Kolkata, despite its murk, is so fascinating. If you can but once embrace the   colourful, raw essence of Mallick Ghat, the cold, sad gloom that clouds the minds of less enlightened souls will leave you forever. You will sing when ‘Night, upon her sombre throne, folds her black wings above the darkening world’. And as the glorious sun bursts in splashes of gold across the sky you will bless the visionary who created the Mallick Ghat – just for you!