KOLKATA: A WINDOW TO THE FUTURE

In a city filled with colonial nostalgia, a a new restoration story and fresh approaches are changing the narrative, one building at a time. 

- Diya Kohli

Khorkhori... the word rolls off the tongue in guttural 'khs' and 'rs' imitating the grating of the shutters as they open and close. These louvred European windows first arrived in Kolkata with the colonisers in the 18th century and found a place in their grand building enterprise and the making of a new capital. Painted a de rigueur 'bus green', the khorkhori proliferated beyond the grand colonial offices of Central Kolkata and North Kolkata rajbaris into a world of standalone family homes in South Kolkata built by the new Bengali professionals the lawyers, doctors, engineers, and civil servants.

In the centuries that passed, the khorkhoris followed the fortunes of the buildings they were housed in. Many of the early 20th-century houses in the genteel neighbourhoods of South Kolkata were demolished to make way for new apartment blocks, while the older palatial mansions of the North slowly decayed. The khorkhoris of these homes guarded a glorious Calcutta of the past one that thrived only in the nostalgia of city residents and lived on in conversations over Scotch and English roasts at Raj-era clubs, suspended in time.