It was on a sweltering hot May evening last year that I first met acclaimed film director, Mira Nair. It was, of course, inside a restaurant of the only heritage hotel of Lucknow, Lebua, which Mira loved and made a home for the months she later spent in the city. Mira and her team had finalised Lucknow as the place they would shoot their series, A Suitable Boy, and were here to hunt for locations.
That is when I learnt that this book of mine which the hotel had thoughtfully presented to her had suddenly opened up many possibilities. Having restored our own family home which we returned to once my husband retired from foreign service, and documenting many other grand old homes for my lifestyle blog, I came into contact with Sanatkada, an NGO that organises the by-now-famous annual festival celebrating the culture of old Lucknow. In 2017, their theme was old homes. So was born my book, Rehaish—At Home in Lucknow, commissioned by their publishing arm.
Mira chose three houses from the book—Oel House, shown as the Calcutta home of the Chatterjis; the home of Lord Khalid Hameed shown as the minister, Mahesh Kapoor’s residence; and the home of Salim and Noor Khan, shown as Elm Villa, the guest house where Haresh Khanna, the ‘Suitable Boy’, lives.
First, Oel House. Originally an early 18th century Nawabi structure called Nazara Kothi, it was later purchased by an Englishman and named after him, Jackson Kothi. In 1929, Raja Yuvraj Dutt Singh, the Taluqdar of Oel—some 118 km from Lucknow—bought it and renamed it Oel House. His grandson,VND Singh and his wife, Sudha, live in it.
This unusually-shaped double-storeyed structure is hexagonal in shape at the rear. That is where its pretty garden is, too. On its north lies the Gomti river. In the past, some 1,25,000 sq ft of the property sloped down to the river.The home of Lord Hameed, a life peer at Britain’s House of Lords, was shown as the minister, Mahesh Kapoor’s home. This single-storeyed colonial-style bungalow sits on a large plot of land with enormous trees. A driveway leads from the gate to the portico while there are large gardens on all sides.
The home of Salim and Noor Khan, shown as Elm Villa, was built in the late 19th century. This classic colonial bungalow has verandahs on all four sides with a portico in front. There are four pentagonal rooms in the four corners, while the large drawing and dining rooms are right in the centre, separated by a corridor. The house stands on a large plot with a garden in the front and assorted fruit trees on the sides.
The occupants said that the team treated their homes with utmost care. Objects that had to be removed were labelled, photographed, packed carefully and put in storage. If they painted the rooms in a different colour, they were painted back in a colour of the owners’ choice.
(The writer also essayed a minor role in the series, that of Mrs Chatterji, Shahana Goswami’s mother)