A historic temple in the heart of Uzan Bazar - the Latasil Ganesh Mandir. Today, it is a beautiful white building adorned with marble tiles and has space to accommodate a hundred devotees in its premises. But people of Guwahati often prefer to recall the old temple, a tiny tin roof Assam type house that is now used as the shed for lighting diya and incense.
The stone statue of Lord Ganesh that is worshipped in this temple was discovered long back during the construction of the High Court Judge’s bungalow during the British period. After that the statue remained neglected for a long time at the premises of Bentinck’s bungalow, the then Deputy Commissioner of undivided Kamrup.
The credit of establishment of the Ganesh temple goes to Haliram Das, whom people fondly remember as ‘Kandurakai’.
Kandurakai originally hailed from Bormuria village of Lakhimpur. At the age of about 12 years he came to Guwahati after both his parents died. He resided and worked in the house of Min Bordoloi of Latasil.
The household had a lot of animals, especially cows and lambs. Reportedly, Commissioner Bentinck used to say this about the road leading to their house, “Oh! That road with Lambs!” Hence the road was later permanently named as the ‘Lamb Road.’
So, Kandurakai used to cut grass on the land near the Commissioner’s bungalow for the cattle. One day he found a few coins lying below a banyan tree. And he started lighting earthen lamps and praying at the spot.
Although Bentinck chased him way on many occasions he would keep returning. And one day he found the stone statue of Ganesh lying beside the servants’ quarters in the campus. With the help of a few workers he shifted the statue below the tree where it remained till the current building was built. Although the exact dates of events are unrecorded, reportedly the temple was set up about three years prior to the Chinese Aggression, say 1959.
Bentinck, in an attempt to remove the temple from his premises, asked the municipality to shift the statue to the state museum. However, the authorities refused to do so seeing the devotion of the people. Also the statue was, by then, covered in layers of ‘sindoor’ and oil which made it difficult to restore it for archaeological studies. Reportedly, even Bentinck use to offer prayers at the temple in later years.
Haliram Das continued to reside in the temple till his death on 21st May, 2005. He was around 90 years old when he died. A bust statue of his was later made at the temple campus.
Later, another priest dominated the temple for a few years and took away the money donated by the people.
Also the old temple was just a small room on the Gauhati High Court’s land. Around 1994, a few localities of the area including Pulin Das, Jagannath Das, Ujjal Bhuyan, Madhab Bordoloi, and others decided to establish a new structure as the number of devotees increased.
After much appeal and letters to the high court, a plot of land measuring 1 katha 5 lessa was allotted to the temple committee.
The new temple structure was constructed solely on donations extended by all sections of society - from the richer classes to the meager amounts donated by even the beggars and the daily wage workers.
It was inaugurated on 21st January 2005, four months prior to the demise of its founder, Kandurakai.
