It was a lovely Bungalow; nay a kothi.
The creaking gate made of ornate wrought iron engravings held together by wood was imposing. The hinges sighed reluctantly as I pushed it open and walked in. The gravel crunched under my feet and as I looked around , I could only see a jungle of weeds and non-descript trees greeting me.
I walked further in and the gravel path took a sharp left turn and I looked at what was a momento from a hundred years back -A kothi stood out blocking my path. The entire building had elements of English Architecture married into the what looked like Western Indian frills. The dirty looking exterior had vines and roots coming out of the walls but could not hide the alabaster marble it was made of. A few steps further down and I had reached the broken door to the building. I moved in.
A wide semi-circular verandah, fringed by dirty marble staircases which led to the upper floor, lay in front. The verandah opened upon a hall which had lovely inlay work on the walls and broken glass strewn on the floor. I took the stairs and reached another balcony at the first floor level. There were four rooms opening out from this balcony on one side and the other side looked down on the open space below.
The atmosphere was pregnant with history.
There was a half broken chair on the verandah and I sat down on it for a moment. As I looked out , I could make out the old tennis court now covered by unkempt grass and weed, the abandoned pond on the left alongwith its semi broken ghat, the collection of shrubs at the right corner --wild and abandoned-- looking eerily like a Rose Garden and some magnificent Mango trees lined up by the pond.
I drifted into the thoughts of a possible golden past of the building when this house was possibly the pride of the owner. Then there were the days of Burra khana, nautch parties, horsedriven carriages , barbeque by the side of the pond, strolls by the Rose Garden, badminton by long gowned and gloved ladies and fun & foxtrot under arguably the biggest chandeliers of South Kolkata- or Calcutta, as I should correctly say.
My reverie was broken by the people who had taken me there for my opinion about the market feasibility of an apartment block in that plot of land.
Today , instead of the famous Kothi of Mr. Moore of Moore Avenue , South Calcutta, stands a new apartment block which, for the want of a better word , is ugly and sans character.
Sorry Mr. Moore.
Even my romantically coloured biased report did not help to protect your lovely historical Kothi and Calcutta lost a little more of its graceful history.
