Time stops inside Kolkata’s antique store

Members of the erstwhile zamindar families in and around Kolkata are visiting the city’s antique stores to sell memorabilia that once added value to their colonial-era bungalows. The sales have increased over the years, claim owners of Kolkata’s antique houses.

No one knows the exact reason as to why the families are selling their products, many say it could be because the families are converting their bungalows into fivestar hotels.

The current generation does not want huge Italian marble tables or statues, this is a minimalist world, claims Dipanjan Roy, a marketing honcho who lives in Kolkata. “I keep hearing about these colonial-era bungalows falling under the hammer of the builders. Some families save their heritage property and turn it into hotels, the rest just take cash and fly.”

Roy says at a time when brown furniture is just out of favour, and antiques can make a property feel dated and less appealing, especially to the younger ones.

Some builders retain the bungalows and do modifications as per modern needs, others raze the bungalows and build skyscrapers. And once the builders take over, the stash lands up in the antique or auction houses around the Park Street area.

Once there were many antique shops, mostly run by Anglo-indians, now there are just a few surviving by renting colonial furniture and marble statues to filmmakers who love making historical serials and movies.

You need to walk into an antique store, there are no signages. There is a big one on Park Street, sandwiched between a century-old post office and the swanky Starbucks store. It sells marble statues, dressing tables, glass decanters, record players, cameras and typewriters and gas lamps, even rare lithographs, framed photographs, chipped European vases and study tables.

The owner, a lanky Britisher who speaks fluent Bengali, says he wishes to shift to Goa where the demand for such products is high. “I am surviving because of Tollywood (Bengali film industry based out of Kolkata’s Tollygunge area). There are very few takers for such products,” says Julian Ronald Jones. He says what he has is unique and unavailable in modern home decor stores.

There are artefacts which have sat in the store—non purchased—for over a decade. Jones calls it occupational hazards that come with buying and selling beautiful things.

But then, where are the buyers?

Jones said he has furnished the store accordingly because he loves his products. There is a godown as well, where workers polish old furniture before they are