Check into 'The Shashi Kapoor Room'

Steeped in celebrity history, Fairlawn Hotel played host to several famous guests, including Shashi Kapoor and his wife, who chose it for their honeymoon, writes Uttaran Das Gupta

Old-timers will remember Violet Smith — “Vi” to her friends — sitting at the portico of her quaint Fairlawn Hotel on Sudder Street in central Kolkata. She knew many of those who came for the continental delicacies or to drink in the garden restaurant. She could also tell you everything about the swinging jazz scene in the city in the 1940s. Her hotel, a landmark, has had many famous guests — Günter Grass, Patrick Swayze, Julie Christie, Tirtio Terzani, Sting, James Ivory and Ismail Merchant. But there was one who returned to it again and again — Shashi Kapoor.

The Bollywood heartthrob from the ’60s and ’70s met his future wife, Jennifer Kendal, in the early ’50s, when they were touring Kolkata (then Calcutta) with their theatre groups. It was love at first sight. Kapoor was only 18 then, and had to wait a few years before they could marry. The young couple spent their honeymoon at Room No 17 of the Fairlawn. Over the years, whenever the Kapoors came to Kolkata they stayed at the hotel, always in this room, which has since been christened the “Shashi Kapoor Room”. It is in great demand all through the year — much like the Mona Lisa Guest House that suddenly became famous after being featured in Kahaani (2012) starring Vidya Balan.

The dining hall at Fairlawn Hotel

The room itself has no frills — two single beds joined together to make a double, a simple dressing table and a writing table with a TV set. Like the rest of the hotel, it has the ambience of an old, bygone era, conforming to the nostalgic air that permeates even the carpets at Fairlawn. Its website describes the establishment as “Colonial charm in the heart of Kolkata”. 

In recent times, however, the hotel has modernised, adding geysers and air-conditioners to the room, discarding the “continental” fare in the menu and replacing it with Chinese and Indian food — though you can still order a steak if you are willing to wait for it. And, come Christmas, the waiters wear cummerbunds and pagdis while serving wine.   

My tryst with Fairlawn started on a stormy evening in the summer of 2012, when I stepped into the garden of the hotel for the first time. Truthfully, I did not know about the place before that. I was meeting a friend who had returned to the city after spending two years in Delhi, and she suggested we go there for a drink. She had been there once before. Getting off the autorickshaw on Free School Street, we walked down Sudder Street — named so because it once had an appeals court, or sadar — before arriving at the green painted gates of the building that has stood at the site since 1783.

Room No 17, which is now called ‘The Shashi Kapoor Room’

Initially, we sat in the garden. But as the rain came down in buckets, all the guests were forced to move into the portico. In there, everything was green — the walls, the chairs, the cushions, the doors and windows — just like the many potted plants. Smith loved the colour green, in all its freshness, but it could be a little intimidating for a first-timer. The walls were full of framed photographs — of famous guests, the British royal family, or of the family that has owned it. Smith’s mother, Rosie Sarkies, a refugee who had survived the Armenian genocide in Turkey, bought this hotel in 1936. Armenians, once a sizeable community in the city, were big in the hotel business, once owning the Grand (now an Oberoi property), the Kenilworth, the Russell and the Continental. 

That evening at Fairlawn later featured in a short story, “Suddenly Last Summer”, I wrote for Juggernaut. Smith featured in it, as did a mention of Kapoor’s in-laws — Geoffery and Laura Kendal, English actors who performed Shakespeare while touring. The Merchant-Ivory film, Shakespeare Wallah (1965), which starred Kapoor and Jennifer’s sister, Felicity, as well as the Kendals, was somewhat inspired by their adventures. Satyajit Ray had scored the music for the film. The Kendals apparently performed on the balcony of the hotel to earn their lodging. 

The lead character of Aparna Sen’s 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981) — which Kapoor produced — got her name from Vi Smith and was called Violet Stoneham. Smith, known at times as the “Duchess of Sudder Street”, died on September 20, 2014, in her room in the hotel.