Visiting the Past – The Heritage House of a Wealthy Merchant

It is a long 6 hour drive from Kolkata.

Knowing that India had advanced so much with its fantastic road network, I knew that it would not be a tedious journey. At least not to me, as I am not daunted by the rural way of life in hamlets.

But 6 hours, even in a good car with a good driver is still 6 hours on the road.

And I hoped that the destination would be worthy of the journey.

The reality turned out to be way way better than my expectations. Because the expectations were built on mere pictures and pictures cannot capture the aura of the people there.

Below I present the aura that the camera did manage to capture.

There is much more to the place than these visuals show – but let’s begin with photos of the architecture & the interiors:

This was one more living museum – museum of design & style. A museum that I could live in and sleep in. A museum that had a living soul. Taken care of warm people. With no signs that said “do not ….” or “forbidden”.

This mansion looked like the house of Devdas – a famous romantic tragedy written by Saratchandra, a classic of Bengali literature, probably written in the same region.

Every wall spoke of the past – the family that laughed and cried here for decades. And visiting their imagined stories, based on Tagore & Saratchandra’s tales, was like visiting the past.

What an enchanting time it was!

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