The Khadims showroom on Gariahat Road is finally being pulled down. It was sheer madness to have built it in the first place.
Initially I watched with indifferent curiosity a makeshift construction, on the lines of a puja pandal being built on an important commercial road. Then, to my surprise they slapped an imposing looking wooden façade onto it, complete with a glass door. Through it I saw a wall-to-wall carpet being laid out to cover the crude, uneven floor. In some days they opened it up to the public. The ordinary window shopper once within its carpeted, air-conditioned interior would never suspect its sturdiness. But this bothered me, more than I can tell, and every time I stood at my verandah and noticed the ungainly looking bamboo and asbestos behind the painted front, a vague resentment welled up.
Trade flourished through the summer .A liveried guard was installed at the door. Then it got hotter and hotter until grey clouds started massing in the sky. With the first kal-baishakhi the foundation-less building tottered. I pictured the roof flying off leaving the air conditioner and the guard standing foolishly behind and laughed.
They didnt,off course, when the same thought occurred ,so now its being dismantled. And I, irrationally enough, will miss it. For though an oddity it was rather interesting and one highly representative of our times.