The bust of Queen Victoria and (below) a double row of the busts on the facade of the house on Gokul Boral Street. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Victoria Memorial Hall may boast the largest and grandest bronze statue of the woman who became the Empress of India in 1877 — two years after the mutiny — but her images strewn all over the city, can still take one by surprise, for they pop up at the oddest imaginable places.

These tokens of fealty reveal how deeply she was revered by the Bengalis, for some of the neighbourhoods in which these are located could not have been more Bengali. Indeed, many of her loyal subjects and even those who were trying to build up a popular movement to oust the British government from India, considered her a mother figure who protected and nurtured her subject children.

The satirical poet, Iswar Chandra Gupta, had written a paen to Queen Victoria extolling her motherly virtues. The Empress never visited India but she had taken the trouble of learning both Urdu and Hindi, and had Indian retainers who were very close to her.

For decades I have been shopping at Bowbazar for fresh vegetables and fish, but it was only about three years ago that I detected a Queen Victoria likeness for the first time as I raised my eyes from the array of greens. There it was “embossed” on the verandah of the small house in the hardware range of the street, closer to Hind cinema.

The three images resembled enlarged coins and her royal visage was in profile. The courtyard was small and the room in which the landlord sat had florid tiles that had not lost their sheen although the floor had developed a large crack. There are tram tracks on the street, and as the trams trundle down the street, all the houses along the route shake like houses of cards or malarial victims.

The landlord had no idea about how Victoria Regina had reached the verandah but he admitted that the original landlord, who was a Bengali, may have been able to throw light on it.

Years later I chanced upon another such image in crowded Jackson Lane behind Brabourne Road, close to Yule House. This image — identical in size, shape and design with the ones in Bowbazar — was on the terrace of a dilapidated, single-storeyed building. Above it was the figure of the phoenix in stucco, a replica of the heraldic creature that lines the terrace of the Accountant-General’s office.

The latter office, red in colour, has another Queen Victoria placed among the terracotta ornaments above its entrance on Kiran Shankar Roy Street. But this is not the familiar dour, humourless visage that stares down at the crowds. Queen Victoria is the young, fresh-faced woman we occasionally see in portraits.

Even more curious are the double rows of busts of the queen on the façade of a private house in Gokul Boral Street, earlier known as Sankaritola Lane, opposite Subodh Mallik Square. The house belongs to the Gun family and it looks ordinary enough. Dust and grime has created a patina on the walls. Over an entrance to the house is a tiny shrine with a deity inside not visible to passersby. The only frill this unremarkable house has allowed itself is this double row of regal visages made of stucco, most of which are in good repair.

The members of the Gun family were unable to throw any light on the origin of these images. Both the house and family had obviously seen better times. Perhaps their trade or business depended on the blessings of the British. Their fortunes have changed but the empress still holds sway.