By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD

The recent collapse of a second portion of the famed, more than a century old, Maharani’s College building in our city has claimed the life of a young daily wage earner, with his two little kids now being left fatherless and his household, left bereft of its only means of sustenance. Thankfully, when this incident happened, more than a dozen of the poor man’s co-workers, who too were inside the crumbling building, had just gone out of the area for a break, while he was still inside. So, they missed meeting the same terrible fate by a bare whisker.

The demolition was being done because a few years ago, a portion of the Chemistry Department of the college had collapsed and it was decided by the Government to rebuild it. This iconic college was established in the year 1917 by the Queen Regent of Princely Mysore, Maharani Kempananjammanni Vani Vilasa Sannidhana, the illustrious mother of H.H. Sri Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV, the man who perhaps did more for the development of our State and the welfare of its people, than anyone else, before or after him.

Since its inception, the college, for a very long time, has held a very important place among the pioneering educational institutions of our city and has been continuing to play a very important role in the education of women, from not only Mysuru and its outskirts but also from many districts, far flung from the city, where it has been standing tall, for more than a century. Even now, despite the mushrooming of colleges in every small town around Mysuru, this college somehow continues to be the most favoured destination of hundreds of rural girls, who continue to flock there for education.

To have an understanding of what I am saying, you only have to stand across the road from it, just before it is time for classes to begin there and see the continuous stream of visibly happy girls, in small groups, conversing merrily and converging on it, from all sides. But I must warn you here, that this activity may not be without its inherent risks, because anyone of the opposite sex, who seems to be standing and doing nothing, in the immediate vicinity of a women’s college, will certainly be at great risk of being looked down upon, only as a Roadside Romeo!

Humour aside, as all of us Mysureans know very well, it is not just this iconic building that is in a dilapidated state, both due to age and some neglect too, but at least a dozen other equally important landmarks, each with its own unique place in the history of our city, which share the same fate. This sad saga started with the collapse of a portion of the Lansdowne Building, more than twelve years ago which resulted in two deaths.

Then, the roof of a shop there and then a portion itself of the sprawling Devaraja Market came down, thankfully without any fatalities. This too did not stir the senses of our Government, let alone prodding it into taking some corrective action to stem the trend. The result of this apathy was that the front portion, the very face, of the quaint Fire Station in Saraswathipuram, came down. A lady who was standing there, waiting for a city bus, missed death, only by the skin of her teeth. There has been much public outrage over this series of disturbing incidents, with repeated demands for Government intervention to restore these historic buildings to their original glory and save the many others desperately in need of restoration and upkeep, from meeting a similar fate.

But all that we have been seeing over the years, are incoherent statements from undecided minds and no concrete action, whatsoever. These buildings continue to stand neglected, as if they are the grim relics of a long bygone battle, intentionally preserved as it left them, for showcasing the history of our city!

Nobody in power seems to understand that the longer any building is left in a state of dilapidation and neglect, the more difficult it becomes for it to be restored and brought back into use. Many citizens have now naturally begun to feel that leaving them to rot and become unrestorable, is exactly the sinister intention of those in power, who want to make their piles of money by ensuring that they get bigger kickbacks if they give out bigger contracts for repair or even complete  rebuilding, altogether!

Another most magnificent edifice of our city, The Lalitha Mahal Palace Hotel, which is now completely in the wrong hands and relegated to the shameful level of just a film shooting set, seems to be all set to meet an inglorious end, very soon. That is, until someone in power, does some right thinking and hands it over to a reputed hotel chain, with an admirable track record, of not just restoring and maintaining such heritage palaces in a good state but also of running them profitably for themselves and their owners too, which in our case is our State Government.

But I’m wondering whether it is already not too late to get the best hotel chain of our country to do its best, to our best building? I say this because, we all read in the papers just three days ago that the Taj Group of Hotels has inked a deal to take over and run a very recently built hotel of our city and they have thus no intention now of doing the honours to our Lalitha Mahal, thanks to the tardiness and inaction of our Government, with whom they were in negotiation for a very long time, with no progress.

The haunting words penned by Thomas Gray, while he sat and pondered in a distant country churchyard, more than two-hundred-and-fifty-years ago, come to my mind now, as I sit and pen this elegy…

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathomed caves of the ocean bear,

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air

The rather disturbing thought that comes to my mind here is, whether our own ‘Jewel in the Crown’ will completely miss the bus to a new life of dignity, that it richly deserves and continue to stand, lost in the desolate wilderness that surrounds it now?

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