The story of Kolkata's oldest attar shop and its Awadh origins

Indian Express

6 hours ago

Seated at the rear of his shop, Neyazuddin Allah Bukhsh — a tall, sturdy man — carefully penned down the names of seven generations before him and the one after: his daughter and his brother's son. As the eighth generation to run Haji Khuda Bukhsh Nabi Bukhsh, a 200-year-old attar store on Maulana Shaukat Ali Street in Calcutta, Neyazuddin Allah Bukhsh says attar flows in his veins like blood.
From the outside, the store appears to be a modest, one-room space, with cupboards on either side stacked with attar bottles, and walls decorated with quotes from the Quran. While Bukhsh sits on a wooden chair at the back, the others at the store, when not busy fetching attar bottles, are seated on a mattress facing the street. 'I talk about our history as often as I sell attar bottles,' Bukhsh laughs. His ground-floor store is part of an old, double-storey building that once served as the criminal court of Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal.
'Attar makes you a jollier person, it uplifts your mind and mood,' he exclaims with excitement. What draws even devoted perfume-users, Bukhsh says, is attar's staying capacity.
From the arrival of his forefathers in Calcutta in the 1800s to the turbulent Partition of British India, this is the story of the city's oldest attar store told through the eyes of Bukhsh.
The origins of attar can be traced back centuries to Ayurveda. In The Lost Generation (2020), author Nidhi Dugar Kundalia says the earliest distillation of attar was mentioned in the Ayurvedic text Charaka Samhita, which elaborated on its healing effects. 'Varahamihira, the fifth-century scholar, jots down the method to create the bakula scent by extracting the essence from seashells by the method of distillation.' The seventh-century text, Harshacharita, also mentioned the use of agarwood oil in perfuming rooms.
However, British author Roy Genders, in his book Perfume Through the Ages (1972), argues that the tenth-century Arabian doctor Avicenna was the first to obtain the oil of flowers (attar) by distillation.
Kalidasa, in his poem Shakuntala, wrote that perfumes were used both for personal and religious rites. 'Sacrifices, consisting of fires of scented wood, were offered in the temples of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva and the flames were fed with a consecrated ointment and ringed with leaves of the sacred herb 'rusa',' notes Genders.
The Mughals popularised the use of attar by fragrancing their palaces, perfuming themselves, and their women. 'The women in the Mughal harem were educated in the art of enticement through fragrances, using motiar (jasmine) when the men were tired, and khus when it was hot,' writes Kundalia.
Bukhsh's forefathers were attar-sellers in Lucknow's Hazratganj and Aminabad, then part of the region of Awadh. However, 'British oppression,' he reckons, was the reason they moved to Calcutta. 'They would regularly supply attar to the Bengali babus in Calcutta,' he said, adding, 'it made sense for them to move here, given how difficult the British were making life in Lucknow.' Sheikh Dahan, his son Haji Jaan Mohammad and grandson Haji Khuda Bukhsh were the first three to move to Calcutta. They set up a house on Baithakkhana Road and a factory in Beliaghata in central Calcutta. 'We were the first attar-wallahs in Calcutta,' he remarks with pride.
The selection of attars sold, however, was limited: shamama, musk amber, and henna. There was a lot of emphasis on flowers like rajnigandha, bela, and chameli, says Bukhsh. The customer base for the Bukhsh family in this new city was predominantly Bengali. 'Britishers barely bought attar. You see, Bengalis are naturally joyful and artistic, just as an attar-loving person should be,' he remarked. When asked what art had to do with attar, Bukhsh explained: 'Making attar is also an art, it is like an invention. It takes about 20-25 days to make, and all by hand.'
From Calcutta, attar was also exported to Burma (Myanmar), Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.
The Partition of British India changed things for Haji Khuda Bukhsh Nabi Bukhsh. 'Refugees arrived in large numbers from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and settled in Beliaghata, which compelled us to give up the factory in the area.' Since then, however, no other political movement has disrupted business. 'That was the last time we faced a loss,' Bukhsh said, sounding grateful. Motilal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and Liaqat Ali Khan were among the notable visitors at the store.
An interesting observation, made by Bukhsh, was the use of attar by these men as a form of pleasure. Historian Seema Bawa, in her 2021 book Locating Pleasure in Indian History, concurs with this view: 'Perfumes, incense and ittar/attar were some of the highly prized luxuries… like hearing music or watching a performance, the experience was ephemeral.'
At this point, Bukhsh was interrupted by a regular visitor who urged him to talk about his 'customer-identifying skills.' Modestly, Bukhsh replied: 'I've been in the business long enough to identify the mood and desire of customers. Some come looking for attars to woo their beloved, others are nursing a broken heart.' While he laughed that he had never received formal training in attar-selling, he acknowledged that he had never once upset a customer with his choice of attar. 'Women love lavender and jasmine; it calms you down,' he said with a quirky smile.
Explaining the process, he said petals are plucked and then brewed in water on a wood fire overnight. The distilled liquid is transferred through a bamboo pipe to a clay receiver, the bhapka. 'Once distillation is complete, the mixture is poured into a leather bottle called a kuppi to allow the mixture to settle and any remaining water to evaporate through the leather,' notes author Elise Vernon Pearlstine in Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance (2022).
'But the time between cutting the flowers and making the attar is crucial because the petals lose their essence with every second,' writes Kundalia. The most important step, though, is monitoring the flame of the stove. 'Not more, not less,' Bukhsh asserts.
Haji Khuda Bukhsh Nabi Bukhsh now occupies a crammed corner of a bustling street dotted with shops. Amid the crowd, sweat, and stress, the smell of attar prevails.
While the market for imported perfumes has significantly risen, attar continues to be cherished and used. 'Perfumes wear off in 5-6 hours, whereas attar stays in your clothes for at least 24 hours.' The latter, he reiterated, was also handmade and free of alcohol. 'This is also why Hindus use attar on their deities,' Bukhsh added.
Attars do not have an expiry date, but they can last over 4-5 years if properly stored and the knob tightly sealed. 'Some attars can be used all year round, whereas others are seasonal,' Bukhsh noted. Oudh, musk, henna, and shamama, for instance, are more suited for winter months.
While the material of the bottle may not affect the aroma, the history behind it is fascinating. The earliest containers were made from goat skin, later replaced by wooden bottles, and eventually by aluminium, plastic, and glass. 'Cut-glass attar bottles were introduced in the 1900s; we imported several such from Belgium around a hundred years ago,' opined Bukhsh.
'I use the attar my grandfather once wore,' he said, smiling. 'While the man is long gone, the smell lingers.'
Nikita writes for the Research Section of IndianExpress.com, focusing on the intersections between colonial history and contemporary issues, especially in gender, culture, and sport.
For suggestions, feedback, or an insider's guide to exploring Calcutta, feel free to reach out to her at [e-mail]. ... Read More