A Hidden Heritage, Darjeeling

It's been three years since I have been watching this house from my office window. During the rainy season the moss on the roof grows green and in the winter it goes back to being dull and dead again.
It stands tall and elegant holding it's own, long forgotten in the corner of  the Gandhi road.

It is of course a beautiful house, surely built during the British era, maybe not a heritage but surely belonging to that time. The roof and the drain has started breaking down and I can't stop wondering  whoever the owner of this house is and why repairs are never done?

It's almost impossible to see this house from the main Gandhi road as it is shrouded and sandwiched between newer houses and buildings. Even I had to go to two different rooms in my office to take these pictures.Yet at the same  time many tourists who have stayed at the Northern side of Hotel Viceroy have seen this building. I cannot guarantee that they have noticed it or even vaguely remember seeing its dilapidated roof.

I am sure that this house has a story about people who built it and people who stayed in it. It must be ripe with memories of the vivaciousness of the times that it has housed. But such stories are rarely sought nor valued. If I ever come to know the story of this place, be sure to write about it in the blog.
However the most important thing that caught my attention was that this great structure epitomizes the ravages of time, of civilization-about being tucked into a corner and forgotten...It epitomizes Darjeeling's plight on how people live in the house without ever owning it...