NEW DELHI,(PTI): The 340room red stone Rashtrapati Bhavan, the official residence of Indian president, would have been a hospital had a faint suggestion been taken seriously.
A book on “Rashtrapati Bhavan the story of president’s house” by H.Y .Sharada Prasad says this about “the fleeting proposal” by independent India’s first governor-general C. Rajagopal Chari.
Chari wondered whether the constitutional head of India needed such a large house. But Premier Jawaharlal Nehru differed on this as he felt that moving into a smaller house would only mean maintaining two houses.
This reflects the attitudinal change in the occupants of the ornate mansion from the days of British viceroys to those of presidents of independent India.
Designed by the English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens the vice regal palace on the Raisin a hill stands as a symbiotic symbol of elegance and traditionality, majesty and authority that Indian constitution bestows on the head of state.
It took 17 years to complete the palace at an estimated cost of 17 million pound sterling (about 700 million Indian rupees) and its first occupant in 1931 was Lord
Lutyens wrote; “fancy Shakespeare being asked by Queen Elizabeth to write an ode in Chaucerian meter.”
Lutyens was able to maintain his ground in the long-drawn tussle with Lord Harding because he won over the viceroy’s wife to his side.
He once wrote to her I will wash your feet with my tears and wipe them with my hair. True, I have very little hair but you have very little feet.”
The King was eventually won over biographers of Lutyens point out that he did not make much money out of the undertaking. The fee he earned over 17 years was 5,000 pounds in all.
The building that was to be built in four years took 17 years to complete. When lord Irwin moved in on January 23,1931, Lutyens slipped away after the formal dinner outside the door for a while to kiss the wall of the house he had built.
Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 7, 1992
