If you head eastwards down Vivekananda Road, you will pass Maniktola and reach a canal. Cross the canal and take a left. Another two hundred yards or so later, there is a narrow lane going in. Follow that winding road, to your right there will be a gate. Enter. The house is gone now, but the garden remains. And the pond. That is where my heart resides.
When they were breaking down the house, the masons refused to work, they said it was haunted. Each time they tried to remove a brick, someone sighed, asked them to stop. I trust it was my father's soul. When I heard, I went and got a brick back. They were able to break the house, thereafter, no ghosts. Irony.
I never wanted to sell the place, I still would hold on to it if I could. But life is not always ideal.
At the time that the house was built, Maniktola wasn't there. It was all jungle and grass. My ancestors built their garden house there. And what a gorgeous house it was. There was another one across the pond, for the ladies! My dad inherited it and there are countless memories of that house and those gardens. I know I have written about it often. We sometimes cribbed when we had to go, but now that I would not crib, there is no place to go.
Irony.
My Calcutta would never be complete without Murari Pukur, the land that I have lost.
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