Gouri Sen

Gouri Sen was born and hailed from Bally , Howrah, West Bengal. He was the son of Nandaram Sen. The family belonged to the Subarna Banik caste, people who are engaged in business. Gouri Sen earned enormous amounts of money from the family export-import business and was well known in business circles. He donated freely to repay debts of other people or to help those who were in trouble over payments to be made to the royal exchequer. This was the source of the Bengali saying lagey taka debey Gouri Sen – “If money is required Gouri Sen will give it”. Many people think that he constructed the Gourishankar Shiva temple at his birth place at (Boral Lane) Hooghly and many people used visit this temple to offer puja

Boralpara, a suburb, is associated with Gauri Sen and he is supposed to have dreamt that Lord Mahadev wanted him to build a temple. It is said that Gauri Sen as a small trader had sent to a customer his seven boats of zinc. On one of the boats was an old sadhu proceeding on pilgrimage. It is said that when the boats reached the destination, the customer found that the cargo was not zinc but was pure silver. Being honest he sent back the boats with their cargo intact to Gauri Sen. Just before the boats arrived Gauri Sen had the dream. Next morning the boats arrived laden with silver and Gauri Sen over night became very rich. He built a temple of Siva and spent his wealth in charity. The temple is still there.