Throwback to the days of the Raj

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Fifteen kms from Bhopal, there is a village called Misrod. The village got its name from a British woman called Miss Rod, who in 1890 committed suicide in the dak bungalow since she could not marry the man she so loved.

Haunted by this incident, the villagers began to call their village the place of Miss Rod’s death. Gradually these two words got merged into a corrupted version, Misrod. The dak bungalow is still there. It stands lonely and deserted and hardly any villager passes by it. It is said that the bungalow is still haunted by the spirit of Miss Rod who could never find her true love.
I have always been fascinated by dak bungalows — the history, culture, architecture and stories like these, revolving around the dak bungalows across the country. There are about 100 of them in India and not much has been written about them.
Many spectacular British era dak bungalows are either crumbling in ignorance or have been changed into circuit or government guests houses. Between 2005 and 2007, I travelled the length and breadth of the country to visit many of these bungalows.
I came across many interesting facts about these bungalows built for British travellers with heavy stone architecture, inverted roof — which was also called monkey roof — and colonial ambience. The whole culture of some cranky old khansamas and khidmatgars (some of whom have been living there for generations), architecture and history related to these places give them a very quirky character. Most of them are either on the top of a hill or hidden in the deep forests. And most of them have stories attached to them.
On one of my trips, I discovered that the circuit house located in the cantonment area of the Dehradun valley was a favourite vacation spot of Nehru and contains framed notes written by him and his daughter, Indira Gandhi, in praise of the valley. The circuit house was also the last place that Nehru visited in May 1964 before he passed away in his sleep in Delhi.
Some historical buildings that were later converted to dak bungalows and circuit houses include Government House in Mysore, the Indore Circuit house, and the Ajmer Circuit House. Many of these converted buildings are located in the formerly princely states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Saurashtra. While dak bungalows in north are in good condition, there is a dire need to pay attention to these bungalows in the south. A lot can be done to preserve these essential pieces of our history.