Raj Bhavan

I stopped on my way,

I couldn’t help admire the grandeur

An arched lofty gate in amber

Towering columns

A growling lion

And Sphinxes –

The heart of the British Empire

Raj Bhavan exuded power

 

I peered inside the gate

A thick wooded path,

Drowning the summer sun

And beyond –

A palace of splendour

Ionic Columns, grand casements

And the dome –

Ah! the Vatican itself in Kolkata

 

‘Get away urchin!’

Came a loud warning

Turbaned, exquisitely dressed –

Was it the chowkidar?

‘Don’t you dare come one step further?

And you dare to touch the gate?

The gates of gold –

Shoo, shoo urchin’

 

I was fixated at his beard

Could it be trimmed any better?

The Attendants at Great Eastern

Would be put to shame.

‘You urchin, you are still here?

One word to the Lat Sahib

And Kalapani

Forever for you, now shoo!’

 

I was amazed

At the audacity –

Transfixed almost

At the picture perfection

Of manicured lawns

And kempt moustache

When a siren broke my dream

Ta-too-ta-too-ta-too

 

A cavalcade passed by

The Chief Minister

In a string of curtained Ambassadors –

‘The Lat sahib’s coach?

Where is he headed?’ I heard him say

The chowkidar sounded dismayed

‘Writer’s building, are you new here?’

I turned around

 

But there was no one

Empty was the pebbled pathway

The lawns looked not that perfect anymore;

The old mansion shone

But you could choose

To see its age;

Ta-too-ta-too-ta-too

The siren dissolved in the distance…

 

02^nd September, 2026

 

Raj Bhavan, then Government House, was the seat of British imperial power in India from 1803 until the capital moved from Calcutta to Delhi in 1912. Wellesley deliberately built it as a palace worthy of the ruler of an empire, rather than a mere administrative residence; 23 Governors-General and Viceroys lived there. Modelled on Kedleston Hall, with its monumental Ionic portico, lions, sphinxes, sweeping wings and gardens, it was the great imperial palace of the first capital of British India.