The family of Marcar David who ran a successful Jute business in Dacca in the late 19th century share with the Armenian Heritage Project Bangladesh a selection from their family archive containing family photographs as well as business correspondence.
Featured here are letters between Thaddeus Seth Nahapiet who acted as a manager of the business in Naraingunj, and Marcar David who had moved to London during a difficult period of ill health.
Luke David, a 2xgreat grandson of Marcar David sent the following poem to the Project in tribute of his heritage in Bangladesh.
House of Manook
On the banks of the Buriganga,
where old Dhaka meets the world,
there’s a house that bears a memory,
a mansion holding my DNA.
The house of the Armenian Zamindar,
merchant prince of East Bengal,
trader in Jute, salt and indigo:
forefather of this ‘English’ boy.
Today I smell the traffic fumes from my two-bedroomed flat,
wash the dishes in a sink,
imagine the silks that draped his walls,
the roses and woodsmoke that would have filled his air.