Home to the most opulent, a lifestyle unimaginably grandiose, there are gems tucked away in every corner!

The Stained glass, the Billiard Room and the Library. The four poster bed, The gorgeous chandeliers, the “Pankha”, the Gardens with the hum of the birds and the hibiscus. The lovers playing hide and seek through the “kharkari”. The sweeping staircase and the women descending, shimmering in their bejewelled beauty.

The dust and moth ridden tapestry  depicts the passing of the old feudal social order in the early twentieth-century rural Bengal giving way to another that is bourgeois and ruins with, the false pride and arrogance and refusal to adapt to the changed social and economic realities. The Feudal Lord raises a toast to his ancestors whose blood (“Rakto! Rakto!”) and lineage he is so immensely proud of.  Indeed a censure of his folly.

In the flickering of the lamps in the swaying chandelier, grime ridden but mirroring the status symbol of Indian royalty and landed aristocracy.  Its meaning morphs with the luxuriant light in its heydays, the wavering lamps, extinguished for good. And now a relic!

The sound of the sitar and the dancing “ghungroos” wafts through the pillars and the incandescent presence remains of a deep resonant voice singing “Babul Mora…”. A farewell forever!

Maybe not