The Queen of Hills is known for the three tiered economic structure it follows.They are namely; Tea, Tourism and Timber. Amongst them Tourism is the field which certainly earns the largest revenue for this soil. Darjeeling had only three hotels at its primary phrase for providing a warm welcome to the tourists. The time was prior to that of independence. If we consider the “Louis Jubliee Complex” of 1890’s, a Sanatorium made for the shelter of Tuberculosis infected patients. This place should be categorized as a refugee camp made permanent constructed by Edmund Elliot Louis ( a member of the Rajshahi Department of Indian Administration) Hence it doesn't litigate in hotel business. The Maharaja of Tajhat Rangpur, Shri Govindlal Roy donated a sum of rupees nine thousand for this nobel cause. During this time (1849) the population of Darjeeling was approximately ten thousand only.The upper portion of the town was owned by the Kooch Behar Maharaja, whereas the lower area was under the Burdwan Maharaja. It was during 1835-52, housing construction begun in Darjeeling. L.S.S.O Malley in 1907 said that in 1835, the East India Company (E.I.C) bought this town from the Sikkim Raja.The entire town consisted of 138 square miles with 100 residing Lepchas. Then talking about hotel business in Darjeeling, the Dutta Mustafi family are very renowned and antique, an old proprietor named ‘Saheb’ still continues with the business. The entire state was very much accustomed to this name. Not only the state, the name echoed to the corners of the country as well as neighboring countries like Bangladesh, Burma/Myanmar. The location of this building as per now is the 3, Nager Chand Goenka Road, formerly 3, Waddel Road Darjeeling named after General Waddel of the British Empire. Darjeeling was chosen to be The Summer Capital of the British, since they adored this place very much. This place is now renovated to a larger concept hotel named the Hotal Amba Palace, which is run by the bout hotel affairs, "Kalibabu’shotel "The Central Boarding" (1932) comes in the Second rank. The first one is obviously hotel 'The Hindu Boarding' (1921) now located at Chachan Mansion, Ladenla Road (formerly known as the Bhalu Building) DarjVermas. This new building is in total contrast of what we had earlier. The hotel was located in Ushas, the name of the building. (Which was one of the first five storied building in the history of Darjeeling) Immediately next to this five storied building was Prodosh, where I live till this date. I am writing this article on the 30th January 2009* a cold and frosty evening, sitting in the same room, where my father was born back in Dec 24th 1942, the same bed where I will head on to sleep after I complete the task. Just beside Prodosh was another cottage type two storied house named “Chandrakona”, which was also under my grandpa’s possession. The two adjacent buildings were owned by the Ghosh family of Intally, Kolkata, West Bengal INDIA. They were the zamindars of their times. They didn’t even have any legal heirs to sit back and enjoy on their rich financial status. It is shocking news to know that, no one lived in both places; hence my grandpa has taken them on lease. Ushas was given at a sum of Rupees One thousand per annum. Prodosh ground floor was, may be Rupees seventy-five a year. Next we had a chain of shop on the opposite side of the road, the ground floor of Sampad Niwas, my maternal family’s house.
Anyway coming back to the accurate description of the hotel, it was based in a land sized 7.5 poles, which is equivalent to 2040 square feet. The exact building size was 35 ft by 30 ft, which equates to 1050 square feet. The rest of the free space was garden, ground, wash space and lawn. There was a total number of eighteen rooms (18) altogether. Room 8 was in the ground floor close to the stair leading up to the first floor, there was a triangular rod grill while one climbed up the stairs. Just beside room 8 was room 7, it was a medium sized room, quite damp. It had light green lime colored walls. It was just opposite to the coal godown, where the staff played in the dust on an lazy afternoon. On the left to this store, which had a rack, a kind of bed at around 6 ft height, was a huge toilet which had water storage as I knew it was called…choubaccha. Room 7 was probably the most spacious and open kind of room, with a lot of windows and doors. The back wall led to the ‘Lal Cement’, a ground on the southern part of the building, where we used to play cricket with the hotel staff, especially with Babu( my mama’s son who played good cricket), Kunal (my father’s advocate’s son, Kancha, a squint guy who was a Chhettri. My village neighbors also used to host picnics in this ground, since the hotel had adequate water supply, for which it was very famous in entire Darjeeling. We had a big tap made of bronze and was called the ‘garam kal’. Ever since my childhood I have seen hot water gushing out of it, without knowing how. May be my grandpa was close to the water supplier called Mahadew Mama. On the opposite side of this room 6 where permanent boarders like Peter da, Sen Babu used to reside, was an antique kitchen wept with clay, I can still figure out very vividly the big iron vessels being warmed for hours by ‘Ashu Da’, our cook cum Chef. Rooms 6 were the most airy and open of all. Outside room 6 and 7 was the dining table of the ground floor, on it we used to play table-tennis with many. Just on the close to the stairs leading us to the first floor was the entrance to the Prodosh building. We literally had to do a ‘knee up’ to enter that premise. Adjacent to it was another drum of reserved cold water, which I never saw being used. Close to it was the ‘mailadhuang’ a dump of all the wastage of the hotel. Then on the western end we had big ground to play games. From this ground you could see Karne uncle’s new build house, the tin roof, Gullu’s house below his, Radha Hotel, now made Ashirwad, and then the mountains at the back. Remember there was no other building in this lane other than RupBani, Dipali, Kamal Bhawan. The remaining place was vacant land where I and my friends Minku, Sushil, Sandip, Cherry, Sandeep, Riwaz (my car games/gijo partner), Dinesh, Gullu, Darshu di, Sonika, Kanta di, Nikita, Vicky, Dhiraj, Modi, Piyush, Kancha, Sonu/Amit, Ashish, in fact the whole neighborhood spent our childhood sloping in glory, dirtying trousers and enjoying rustic life. There was certainly a much more amount of fun and frolic in our childhood days, which every one of us miss today. Things were quite natural and people very honest. It was really fun to live that kind of life which no longer exists or will exist in mere future. Coming to the the first floor of the building, we had Annu’s dad (Mr. D.S Bomzon) room, it was perhaps room 11, 12 which they kept under their possession since don’t know when. The remaining room 9, 10, 13 were for general customers. From these rooms one could see Sushil’s flat, kitchen or perhaps bit of hazy view of one of Tau’s room. But I do not remember these rooms being occupied since I always visualized a big Godrej Nav-Tal lock hanging on the main entrance door of the first floor. I suppose room number 10 was the biggest room in this flat. Room 13 was the most shabby of it’s kind, occupied by the mihidana walas, and the Selvel people. They used to cook by themselves, making the atmosphere more lethargic. This room had a back door leading to a ground where we used to play marble regularly. This was the Marble Ground on the southern part of the building above the lal cement, just on the opposite to Tai’s kitchen. Whenever Tai wanted she shouted from the kitchen window for her children to come and have roti and not play marble all day long. There was a toilet on the opposite to room 13, it was dirty and dark, another squeaky and narrow toilet was there on the right hand side of this big toilet. It was very ghastly. I never saw it opened and being used, or never heard of, neither did give a try, I was literally afraid to cross this zone, since it was very cluster phobic, marshy and quite dark. As we climbed on the creaky stairs it led us to room 18 a spacious room with 4 beds. The floor of this room was wooden, making it much warmer than others. Below the staircase landing was another toilet which looked like prison walls to me (may be because I was a child then…from my observation of the things past) it was also a greenish lime colored one with a cherry red border on the skirting. The window was high up, and no one could perhaps open or close it. It was a long rectangular shaped toilet which I remember using once, under necessary circumstances. The toilet flushed were antique, a chain when pulled was used to flush. Even light in another toilet adjacent to room 18 ‘chain to put the light on. This was another toilet quite small, and was meant for being used by rooms 15, 16, 17. Room 14 was a quality room with antique furniture in it. In every other room was a Barasingha horn stuck up on the wall. This room had attached bathroom. If one required hot water it was brought to the room in bucket by kancha, and was tipped off by two rupees. Next to this room was room 15, which had marvelous view of everything. From the Kanchanzonga, to the Dhaulagiri and Singilala ranges, the local town, the Bardhaman Raja’s palace, The Lloyd’s Botanical Garden, The Teas Gardens, The Dhirdam Temple, The Mosque, the jail…everything. Room 16 and 17 were compact rooms of average size on the left to the corridor, where the dining table was placed. They provided a view of Tai’s kitchen on the lower end, the main road on the left upper hand and the Lal Cement vertically below. Both of these rooms had a joint verandah at the back. There was another verandah on the right side of the dining table, from this we could see Prodosh building vertically downwards, the main road towards main town if viewed facing the upper right hand side. Moving to the third floor of the building one would find the office straight in the front as we climbed up the stairs. The third floor had a unique space called ‘gali’ a narrow lane opening to the main road and had consecutive windows from where one could shout and call to the ground floor kitchen base, the staff or people at Prodosh. The office was a large space again with green clolred walls which had a long sofa where people (Kamal Da & Mahadew mama, Hamid bahiya & Alim Chacha) used to sit and watch the old black & white Sonodyne Television play, a bed under which all the blankets, pillow covers, quilts were stored. There was a wooden rack above the bed in which there was the place of worship and on the extreme right hand of the rack was a container full of biscuits for the customers of the hotel. This biscuits was brought from Rahim’s Bakery. There was a picture of Kabi Guru Rabindranath Tagore hung on one of the wall, while on the other was a black & white portrayal of Sarada Moni Devi, made by the Dutta Ginni Jewellers, BowBazar, Kolkata. On the corner towards the road was a beautiful seven feet heighted teak cupboard, the lid to this almirah was made up of single piece Belgium glass, and was gifted to my grandpa by the Cooch-Behar Maharaja. We still have it in our residence today.
Almost all of the antique and ancient furnitures have been renovated and redesigned by me and maintained and kept at our residence. As we moved to the corridor of the third floor toilet we would find a toilet used regularly by outsiders, busy but clean. On the laft of this wash-room was room 23, the largest of its kind. This room had a Bison horn and a nice lion legged rajasthani marble base table. This was the only furniture taken away by the Vermas. The room had also got wooden flooring. The dining table for this floor was just outside the room. On to the left of this room was room 22, a stuffy wooden based room darkly colored with green. The coat hangers and towel noose were very ancient and remote. Next to 22 was room 21, a wide spacious room which had fabulous view. The wind blow could be felt very distinctively from here. Everything in this room was wooden, though it did not have any verandah, it was an exclusive spot to hang-out and enjoy the hills, be it evening or early morning. Room 20 was moderate and I did not notice much about it, and if I did as well I have forgotten about it. Room 19 was supposed to be the hottest destination of the entire building. Many posh people stayed in this room. Most of the Bangladeshi Industrialists, the foreign delegates liked this room the most. This room was the only one which had a wardrobe, an attached bathroom with hot & cold water flowing for 24 hrs. The service to this room was also very instant & prompt. There was a corridor next to the dining table from where one could see the road from equal level. There was a stairs leading up to my grandma’s residence and so this stairs was named ‘Private’. There was a concealed black cupboard on the left of this stairs. This was the place where all the technical equipments were stored. My khukri made of pure silver also vanished from this place. I don’t know who else lost what. The entrance last approximately 8 feet by 5 feet space, immediately after which was a smoke grey wooden folding door. On this door was the bronze name-plate “THE CENTRAL BOARDING” stuck. This bronze plate was tried to be stolen a couple of times since you could have seen the tampering on it. During the Gorkhaland Agitation in 1986, this door was smashed with Khukri strokes and the heavy bronze plate bore those evidences vividly. In those days ‘bathroom’ or washroom was called Lavatory. Quite uncommon but understood. The fourth floor of the boarding was a complete residency of the grandmother. As we climbed up, one would find a clean and big toilet on the right, a high yellow colored kitchen on the left, a big bed-room on the right to the kitchen. From this bedroom one could see the Mount Everest Resort, The whole of Waddel Road, and the morning sunshine, which pushed its way in. This was a well finished wooden room, where all of my grandmother’s assets were preserved, since she used none of them. From Rosewood Harmonium, hand rolled Singer machine , Teak Cash box of my grandpa (when opened made a ‘ting’ sound) nice ‘Tat’ and “Jamdani” sarees from 114, Belly Road, Bangladesh. 4 drawer chests, Piano table, dolna chair, and many more I don’t remember. The very next room on the right had only one water-proof bed and had a box window through which one could enjoy the chad or the terrace. A narrow passage of 5 feet led us to the open terrace around 500 square feet.One weird aspect of this building was that, it was never painted from the exterior even once after it had been constructed.
OH GOD! You could SEE & FEEL HEAVEN from here.
I miss this terrace, since “Space is Growth”, and “Openness is Freedom”.
I miss Central Boarding. I solemnly swear that i miss the place from the bottom of my heart.
If in mere future i earn good, I will bring it back my grand father’s vanquished glory.
KALIBABU WILL BE REMEMBERED FOREVER,
SINCE HE IS LIVING IN ME.
( p.a : 23rd Feb 1973)
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