এই সেই পিলখানা যেখানে ছিল বিশ্বের বৃহৎ হস্তি রেজিমেন্ট। গুনে দেখেন শেষ করতে পারবেন না। Fritz Kapp এই ছবিটা তুলেছেন ১৮৯৫-১৮৯০ দিকে। ধারণা করা হয় পিলখানা থেকে রমনা পর্যন্ত হাতির মার্চপাস্টের জন্য যে সড়কটা ছিল সেটাই আজকের এলিফেন্ট রোড। ছবিটা নিয়ে ফেসবুকে নানা আলোচনা। উল্লেখযোগ্য অংশ তুলে ধরলাম।

Naquib Ahsan বলেন, ''Elephants on the march from Pilkhana to Ramna Lake. The trail location situated somewhere in contemporary Elephant Road. According to one of Muntasir Mamun’s piece of writings about Dhaka, present day Elephant Road acquired the name from the elephant trail of Pilkhana to Ramna Lake"

Zoya Ahmed বলেন, "Dissemination of information is a fundamental global right today, but if u scan vintage photographs without at least seeking consent from the collector/archivist who has the ONLY original.. it is tantamount to piracy.

This rare picture belongs to my dad Waqar A. Khan. His book, published by Standard Chartered Bank in 2003, Rare Photographs of Eastern Bengal (1880-1940) was the first pictorial history (coffee-table) book on rare old photographs. Subsequently, the Bank also used 12 photographs from this book with my Dad's PERMISSION for their desk calendar for the year 2004.

However, your collective endeavor (barring several mistaken captions) is otherwise appreciated."

Rina Latif বলেন, "this photograph originally belonged to a german photographer Mr. Fritz Kapp and later became a collection of the British Library. given that, i wonder how Mr. Waqar A. Khan qualifies (in the first place) to permit a commercial bank to publish these for their commercial use!"


Zoya Ahmed বলেন "first and foremost, let me clarify a few points:

i don’t know how familiar you are with the history of photography.. Fritz Kapp, a lesser known photographer, set up studios in Calcutta and Darjeeling in 1890. he was commissioned by Nawab Ahsanullah and set up a small studio in Wiseghat. after the death of his patron Fritz Kapp sold off the studio 1901 but kept on coming back to photograph Nawab Salimullah (Ahsanullah’s son) and his family. some of his photographs still survive in Dhaka museum (although not on display). he died in 1915 in Germany, leaving the bulk of his collection in Calcutta and some in Dhaka. photo archivists routinely publish photographs of such pioneer photographers in their academic works. however, where there is need for mentioning a particular source.. they do so."

"my dad has an original collection of hundreds of vintage photographs (including rare ones of Fritz Kapp and other famous photographers like Bourne & Shepherd, Johnston & Hoffmann etc) which he has been painstakingly collecting, restoring and archiving for over 20 years. not to mention he works closely with some of the leading photo archivists in India and Europe. he has visited the British Library (Visual Dept.) at least a dozen times since 1982 and is known to both past and present Directors. the current Head of Visuals, a friend of my father’s, is a custodian to almost 90,000 images and is a renowned scholar on Colonial era photography, especially, pertaining to South and South East Asia."

"i don’t know where you got your information from but Fritz Kapp never left his collection to the British Library. museums, archives and libraries world-wide collect what their policy dictates.. that is how they acquired Fritz Kapp’s collection (which is relatively small and was collected from Calcutta). in 1986 my dad bought over a dozen of Fritz Kapp’s photographs from Calcutta at a nominal price. for good measure i have asked my dad, who is familiar with the East Bengal (Bangladesh) collection at the British Library, and the photograph in question is not part of their collection.

by the way, the Bank never sold the book commercially. it was published in a limited edition as corporate gifts. as you know, both multinational and national banks and companies in Bangladesh have made it their corporate social responsibility to promote art and cultural heritage.

please realize that we are not at dispute. as i have mentioned in my previous post, i am appreciative of the effort that has been put into creating this group. while looking through the list of photographs i recognized many to be from books, some of which are sitting in our library, and i was merely commenting on how the original sources (from where some of these photographs have been scanned) have not been mentioned.


Mostak Ahamed Galib বলেন, "moghul ra hati voy peto na. akbar 5000 hati diye bisser prothom 'elephant regiment' gore tolen. jodin juddhe hatir babohar chilo, sada chamra ra amader sathe pere uthto na."

Shakib Morshed বলেন, " i don't think u're right mostak...........'cause alexander's army fought against army of an indian king which consisted of elephant riding soldiers, 'n that was thousands of years b4 moghuls came 2 india."

Mostak Ahamed Galib বলেন, "janab sakib,alexander bharat a pouchar por tar songe punjab raj puru(porus) ar juddho suru holo.juddher koushol hisebe raja puru nodir dhare 'gajh buhho' touri korlen.ata kono elephant regiment chilo na borong Macedonians ra kokhono hati dekhe ni bole oder ghoraguluke voy dekhabar jonno rakha hoyechilo.moghul rai prothom niyomito bahini hisabe gajharohi sena niyog dey.dhonnobad.
(surto:The Encyclopedia of Military History, R Dupuy and E Dupuy)"

Shakib Morshed, "i didn't say..........the same king had a regiment of elephants. what i meant is there's time window of thousands of years b/w alexander's military expedition 'n establishment of mughal empire..............there's gotta b some indian king who'd used elephants in his army in b/w. may b not n such a grandiose fashion as the mughals did, 'cause b4 the mughals arrived n india, the subcontinent never really had an empire, it was mostly divided in2 small kingdoms 4 the most part of the history. also, alexanders period of historical recount of the subcontinent was much more documented than the later times....due 2 the fact that 1 of the western civilizations came in2 an elaborate contact w/ the subcontinent. the period after that didn't have that much of documented version of the history, especially military wise.
u may b right.........but that would b very disappointing, 'cause that means they didn't have the visions 2 utilize that kind of military tools which clearly had already been used."