By Karan Thapar

First impressions, I admit, can be misleading but they can also be indelible. That’s certainly true of my trip to ‘Calcutta’ last weekend. I don’t know the city well and haven’t visited for at least five years but I came away irresistibly convinced that some of the nicest aspects of the Raj still linger in the Bengali capital. And the Calcuttans I met wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s why I’m deliberately using the city’s colonial name.

In the heart of the city, just off Park Street, as it used to be called, in a nondescript building you wouldn’t otherwise notice, nestles a delightful Raj-inspired boutique hotel called The Glenburn. Once you get past the unsightly surroundings and the shabby entrance, you enter a world from a forgotten past on the 7th and 8th floors. Its nine rooms have grand four-poster beds, parquet floors and chandeliers, carved wooden sofas and varnished console tables, chintz cushions and brass-framed antique floral prints. The enormous bathrooms contain old fashioned enamel tubs you can sink into and stretch to your full length.

There’s a morning room where I breakfasted reading a three day old copy of the London Times. It felt more relevant than a contemporary edition of The Times of India! The paper’s Court Circular carried details of the King’s programme - he was in Balmoral, perhaps shooting grouse - and when I looked up I found the Victoria Memorial staring back at me. Curzon couldn’t have asked for a finer view as he sipped his morning coffee!

The view from the other side was of the Calcutta Maidan. Last Sunday it looked verdant and inviting. In the far distance I could spot men on horseback, merrily galloping on a cool monsoon morning. Watching them, it seemed, were ladies carrying parasols and little children and their pet dogs playing on the lush green. Would they be coming to The Glenburn for tiffin afterwards? Surely, pink gins would be the most appropriate way of concluding this excursion?

I’d been invited to talk to members of the Bengal Club. It’s a world apart from the Punjabi dhaba the Delhi Gymkhana has been reduced to. Here the British connection is fondly cherished, painstakingly maintained and thoroughly enjoyed.

The audience comprised elegant ladies in chiffon sarees and pearl necklaces and men in well-pressed trousers and sober shirts. There wasn’t a kurta-pyjama to be seen. Nor a bhadralok dhoti. No doubt they knew Bengali but I could only hear English. Spoken as it would be in Knightsbridge!

We dined under the stern gaze of a life-size oil painting of General Outram. He was a former president of the Club now, no doubt, keeping a sharp eye on the new membership. He certainly would have approved of the menu.

It was a four course meal with two wines and the silver cutlery was resplendently laid on both sides of the shining white china plates. We had carrot and celery soup, rock lobsters, roast mutton with cranberry jelly and mint sauce rounded off with delicate brandy snaps. The evening ended with liqueurs served frappe in crystal glasses with sleek stems. It reminded me of Curzon’s vaunted boast: “I dine at Blenheim once a week”!

Blighty has changed but there is a bit of Calcutta that remains defiantly the same. No doubt the tragedy at the RG Kar hospital, the mass protests and the uncertain future of the Chief Minister were discussed, debated and, this being Bengal, argued over but they seemed to belong to a different world. The one outside these hallowed precincts.

So, if you’re the sort who prefers to start sundays with a bowl of steaming porridge followed by scrambled eggs and bacon and you’re wondering what Amrit Kaal is likely to do to you, I recommend The Glenburn and the Bengal Club. There you can be confident that time will always stand still.