by Vikram Muthanna

Recently, a few politicians called our office sounding panicked. They said the windows of Irani’s house were being broken. For a moment, I thought an angry mob was attacking my friend Raian Irani’s house! Then they clarified that it was his father, the legendary F.K. Irani’s old house that was being demolished.

The house that these politicians were talking about is ‘Kripalaya,’ located in the corner, between the Police Commissioner’s Office and Ginger Hotel in Nazarbad. It was purchased by Ideal Jawa India Limited when Farrokh Khudamurad Irani was its Chairman from the Maharaja Kumari Kamakshi Devi Trust.

After the Ideal Jawa factory shut down, this bungalow was auctioned off along with the Jawa factory land, where Sankalp Central Park stands today, by the Karnataka High Court to pay off factory employees in July 2003.

Now it seems, M/s Sweety Property Developers (P), who bought the property 13 years ago is demolishing the dilapidated bungalow. But suddenly our city fathers have risen to save it. But save it from what? And save it from whom? If anything, our city’s land and buildings need to be saved from the very people who are supposed to protect it.

This reminds me, of late it seems some local leaders who are supposed to promote garbage collection to maintain our cleanest city tag are reportedly using garbage for their own “collection”!

Yes, if you have a commercial establishment or if you are building a house and don’t “pay up,” they will simply mark the area in front of your complex or house as a community garbage dump and then instruct the garbage collector not to show up for a few weeks. Soon the stench will render your nostrils numb and you will be forced to pay through your nose to get it cleared. Citizens are being held for ransom with the threat of garbage! So our city’s cleanliness and heritage are not really a very big priority for some of our city fathers.

Now, indeed all of them are right, we must honour F.K. Irani, but why this sudden flood of affection for Mr. Irani just when his old house is being demolished? After all, when this bungalow was auctioned the same people were alive, kicking and politicking; so why didn’t they ask the government to buy it in auction then? Also the same people drove past this bungalow for 13 years as it stood there rotting, why didn’t they think of restoring it then?

Also F.K Irani lived in another house called Bloomfield in the same row for many years; so should we make it heritage too and snatch it away illegally from the private owner? More importantly, where was this care for heritage when Ginger Hotel was built after demolishing another heritage home right next to Kripalaya? Where was this noise when the Palace Garage behind this row of heritage homes was demolished and sold to a builder as recently as four years ago?

Even more interesting while the Corporators want to restore F.K Irani’s house, just down the road from this bungalow is the F.K. Irani Circle. Yes, there is a Circle named after this amazing entrepreneur, philanthropist and visionary. The circle is an insult to the great man. They cannot maintain a Circle in F.K Irani’s name and now they want to take away a bungalow, which has been legally sold to another private citizen years ago?

Even more interesting, one of the politicians who said, “we must save the house as Irani built great institutions for Mysuru” actually had joined his party members in asking the government to shut down Mysore Race Club (MRC) calling it a place for gamblers. But guess he forgot it was Mr. Irani who founded this institution, which today employs 1,900 people and pays the government Rs.25 crore in taxes, has funded 80,000 free eye surgeries.

Also interestingly while this political party called MRC a gamblers den, the same party gave late M.A.M. Ramaswamy, India’s largest Race Horse owner a Rajya Sabha ticket! Let it be.

Now all this talk of restoring and heritage, all the showering of adjectives such as respect, legendary, visionary etc.., reminded me that we are incapable of securing, restoring and respecting our legends or heritage. Remember what happened to R.K. Narayan’s house?

Our city’s legendary writer R. K. Narayan’s (RKN)house stands in Yadavagiri like an orphaned elder; dry to the bone, dilapidated, helpless and lonely. With this R.K. Narayan’s fears have come true. When he was asked why he sold his manuscript to the United States, RKN said “if I had given my manuscripts to the (Indian) government archives, they would have dumped it in some corner where it would have been lying gathering dust and I would have got an acknowledgement on a buff paper. In Boston, they are preserved in air-conditioned lockers.”

Yes, RKN was right. Not only is his manuscript preserved, he also got paid for it. If he had given it to our government, first he would have been emotionally blackmailed by the press and litterateurs to give it away for free, then the government would have preserved it so well that it would be gleaming. Gleaming because silver fish would be chomping away at the manuscript. Just like how they are now “preserving” his house.

Also while our leaders keep harping about “heritage” what have they done to create a Heritage Policy like in European nations? In those countries, if you live in a heritage home and keep it as it is, you get tax breaks. If you need assistance to restore your heritage home, the government will send in experts to help you. They will assist you in getting grants to pay for upkeep. If you want to sell it, the government will pay you market price. Here we just find a reason to harass a private citizen who has bought or inherited an old house from his family.

According to the new CDP, private heritage properties are exempt from the government list. Instead of eyeing private heritage buildings, the Corporators can make use of one of the 131 heritage buildings owned by the government in Mysuru and turn it into a History Museum. For now, our leaders can first restore our roads.

e-mail: vikram@starofmysore.com

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> In Black & White / by Vikram Muthanna / April 24th, 2016