Block. Be assured, brethren, not the writer’s. The QWERTY board’s, if you must know. What other reason – if excuse can be accorded a coat of legitimacy by  terming it thus, that is — could there be  for the mysterious silence of the newsletter for the last few months? The writer’s hands – fingers, to be more appropriate – are blocked when the tools of his trade turn recalcitrant, you will doubtless accede, brethren.  Be that as it may, The 19 has, with dogged perseverance, eventually been able to shake that disinclined component out of its inertia, and is finally back to inform you about the happenings at 19. These columns offer unconditional apologies, summoning the utmost contrition for the involuntary truancy.

Harking back to an event of recent vintage, Bro Vasant Subramanyan, the Senior Warden of Lodge Star in the East, was invested as the District Grand Secretary at a Special  District Meeting held under the banner of Lodge Bengal Masters. The variety of vine bearing clusters of berries commonly known as grapes, whispers –- a viticulturist in the know calls this particular grade the murmuring vine — that the man needed a lot of convincing, which is why, one concludes, the chair remained vacant for a good two and a half months. And, in all fairness, he could not be blamed either; the shade of the heat that the seat generates is a searing white, — scorches the posteriors of the occupant and, subsequently, the other parts of his anatomy, finally consuming the grey matter at the crown. Levity aside, Bro Vasant,  “may God grant you health and strength to perform the duties of your” important  “office with satisfaction to yourself and advantage to the” District.

That – the investiture, not the ravages of the chair — was held on the last day of the ninth month of the year just gone by. On the third day of the month just gone by, — February, in case you are wondering — was held the Half-yearly Communication of the District. Initially slated for Cawnpore, the venue was switched to 19 on account of logistical knots. To make a candid admission, the cancellation generated a not-inconsiderable amount of disappointment; a visit to any mofussil Lodge is a much-anticipated occasion for the brethren of Kolkata. The journey, the sojourn, the meeting itself, and above all, the hospitality are things truly savoured and cherished.  The main agenda of this Communication was the investiture of Bro Ashok Kumar Mehrotra of Lodge Harmony as the Deputy District Grand Master. These columns offer hearty congratulations to the worthy Brother, an ace ritualist and a thorough gentleman, on his ascension.

Then, in continuation of the overall project of restoration of the premises, the Banner Room, with two ominous fissures extending from the floor to the ceiling, that threatened to bring the hall crashing down — at least, the northern section — at the slightest tremor, has been repaired. Employing a method known in civil engineering jargon as stitching. Bricks made of concrete, re-enforced with an inner lattice of iron rods, were inserted into slots chiselled  across the cracks and then crammed with micro-concrete, a compound comprising cement, resin, minerals and polymers, a substance which flows into the tiniest of recesses and expands on drying, thus jamming tight every little nook and cranny. A fresh coat of paint has made over the cavernous hall, that has aptly been referred to in Rose Croix parlance as Dark Room, — almost sepulchral in its gloom — into a bright, well-lit hall. While regrettably, the elegant, lancet, stained-glass lattice windows could not be restored to their pristine glory, — time, in all its inexorability, the elements and, above all, neglect have taken their toll — that being an expensive and time-consuming proposition and  low in the order of priority, the revamp has been relegated to a later date; the scarred windows have, instead,   been masked with a set of curtains. A compromise that hurts the sensibilities of the more discriminating, but then …

The room has, all along, remained fallow for almost 360 of the 365 days of the year, used just for storing the Lodge banners strung up from hooks, thereby deriving  its name. And for five  or six days for the Perfection ceremony of the allied degree of Rose Croix. It now doubles as a Craft room. The members of a particular Lodge might find it of interest to learn that the ornate chairs of all three Principal Officers here are boldly engraved “LODGE PRINSEP, NO 2037”. There is talk of air-conditioning the hall. Personally, I would leave it to the humble fans, pendent from the lofty ceiling with long shafts, to do the cooling, especially as the proposed top coat of silver paint on the roof assures a drop of a few relieving notches of the mercury in the capillary. Shielded as this hall is from the entire trajectory of the blazing star on all three sides, the reflection of the sun’s rays from its only exposed surface, the roof, should save the cash-strapped District of an enormous expense. As it is, the Temple is used for just one or two hours, and that too after dark.

Speaking of the argentine coat, we come to the roof of the building. Sieves would pale into insignificance  compared to the leaks up there. A spotting of a mere ten minutes renders puddles on the floors of the Western Temple, the Chapter and the Banner Rooms. Hopefully, the seepages will now be a matter of the past; the contractor engaged for the repairs   has furnished a firm guarantee of 12 to 13 years. The procedure being employed: first, the two  layers of tar-felt that had been laid earlier to contain the drips – cascade would be more  germane, considering the flow now — are being scraped off; then is trowelled a layer of mortar mixed with polymer, which seals the cracks and, at once,  smooths the rough, scraped surface of the roof. The next step is a liberal coat of bitumen primer. This layer not just secures against any remaining obstinate, elusive cranny – a possibility that is appropriately qualified remote– that may have escaped the mortar, it additionally provides the bonding for the top layer of a 3mm thick polyester-modified preformed membrane which is blow-torched down on the primer. The final coat of bituminous anticorrosive aluminium paint not just provides a guarantee of an additional two or three years, protecting as it will  the inner layers, it will reflect the sunlight and thereby provide a relief of 3 to 4 of the most unbearable degrees. Of Celcius, not Farenheit, mind you, which is by no means an  insignificant drop. One is confident that the freshly rolled out canopy will effectively repulse the fury of the thunderbolt-wielding Zeus – or, closer home, the vajra-brandishing Indra, –  for a decade and a half.

Care to go up for a dekko, brethren? These columns, however, strongly advise those afflicted with even a suggestion of a vertigo, acrophobia, disequilibrium, light-headedness, ricketiness against attempting to venture up the spiral staircase, the only access to the top, at the back; with fifty six tapered cast-iron treads, the upper reaches registering an if-not-strong protest by trembling a bit – grip the newel tight, brethren — even as one negotiates the final round of fifteen winders to the top. Eight and a half inches between each translates to forty feet, or, four storeys. Once up there, though, — never mind the breathlessness the climb triggers, — one is suffused with a sense of exhilaration. The clear sky at this time of the year  affords a salubrious dose of the sunshine vitamin. Stay longer, and you get a healthy tan, — if that patina is discernible on a congenitally brown skin, that is. Then, a panoramic pan of a full three hundred and yet another sixty degrees of the entire neighbourhood; from the verdant grounds of the Armenian School on Free School Street – rebaptized Mirza Ghalib Street, in an impassioned ardour to Indianise everything left behind by the sahibs — to the adjacent precincts of the once-swanky-now-run-to-pathetic-seed Dunlop office,   to Park Mansion, to Karnani Mansion, Stephen Court and Queens Mansion – that imposing building wearing a stately look with its fresh coat of white paint, — with an eyesore of a distant The 42 spiring into the sky, much akin to an ugly smokestack sticking out in brazen conspicuity — to the glitzy Park Hotel , to the MLA Hostel on Kydd Street, and more. And 19, an exemplar with two-and-a-half  prime acres of sprawl boasting not one but two edifices that have earned heritage status, plum at the centre of landmarks that can justly be denominated iconic!

And now, brethren, a tale of two picnics, one penned with a flourish, and the other more matter-of-factly, retaining its basic charm nonetheless. Over, then, to Anil of the Vaswani clan – a term he uses liberally in his portrayal of the al fresco affair, and Ms Archana Sudan, the Principal of our school for the tots.