Is it the beginning of an end for the historic Esplanade Mansion / Watson Hotel, or it can revive?

Is it the beginning of an end for the historic Esplanade Mansion / Watson Hotel, or it can revive?

The erstwhile legendary Watson Hotel (currently the Esplanade Mansion), an architectural landmark - one among the Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensembles , located in the precincts of the Kalaghoda premises in Mumbai that also includes the NGMA, was very recently added to the Global list of heritage sites by the UNESCO World Heritage committee - came face to face with its worst fears, when the fourth-floor balcony of the building came crumbling down on Sunday, crushing the kali peeli taxi parked below. Miraculously the loss was limited, since the waiting to happen accident occurred on a Sunday. Will this accident pave way for the restoration and revival of this historic heritage structure or it will be the beginning of the end of this structure, will be known in the years to come?

The Watson Hotel, currently in its Esplanade Mansion avatar, was named after its proud Swish owner, Mr. John Watson, who conceived the establishment of the hotel during the 1860s. The hotel was constructed using the cast iron frame, which was designed and fabricated in England and transported to India and assembled at its current site location in Bombay to establish the historic Watson Hotel. The hotel had 131 rooms when it opened its doors to its ‘European Only’ clientele in February 1871. The Watson Hotel can be described as the first 5-star hotel of Bombay (Mumbai), which was patronised by the elite European clients during the early years of its establishment. It went on to become one of the important historic colonial constructs that came to be known for the best of interiors that provided a world-class ambiance to its patrons. The Watson Hotel attracted some of the most prominent and illustrious western visitors that included among others Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling and Richard F Burton whose translated works on Kama Sutra became legendary. Mark Twain eloquently talks about the scene at the Watson Hotel, in a chapter in his book “Following the Equator” and describes about the interior opulence at the lobbies and halls of the hotel and how princely the guests at the hotel were treated by the native servants who manned most parts of the Hotel.

The name and fame of Watson Hotel reached far and wide and in the process became the first venue in India, to screen the Lumiere Brothers wonder invention “Cinematographe”, the moving pictures, on the 7th of July 1896, to an audience of wealthy Europeans who paid a rupee each to watch a show that had been billed as “the Marvel of the century”. This very year was a disastrous year for India, which witnessed the worst famine that killed millions of people. The city of Bombay was also hit by the bubonic plague epidemic in September, leading to the death of thousands of people. However, for the Watson Hotel the year turned out to be a blessing in disguise and most of its rooms remained fully occupied with the cool confines of the Watson Hotel making things safer and much better for the European clients.

Bollywood, which drives the Indian Cinema and with Cricket weaves a common bond for the entire country owes its debt to the Watson Hotel where the Lumiere Brothers screened their first moving images cinema. This remarkable piece of film history in India has been documented in the National Museum of Indian Cinema (NMIC), a project of the Film’s Division of the Ministry of I&B, in Mumbai. The NCSM, my parent body, was tasked to curate and develop this cinema museum on turnkey basis and in one of the exhibits in the “Cinema Across India” section we have used a projection mapping technique to present the debut of the first ever film screening in India that happened at the historic Watson Hotel. The Museum Advisory Committee under the chairmanship of Shyam Benegal and other illustrious members that include among others Adoor Gopalkrishna, were the guiding force in the development of the Cinema Museum.

The genesis for the initial success of the Watson’s Hotel was due to the economic prosperity of the city, which goes back to the mid-19th century that witnessed a booming cotton trade in Mumbai. More and more traders from Europe started visiting the city and the fear of mosquitoes, tropical diseases and the lack of good hotels that matched the safety, style and tenor of the hotels in Europe helped the Watson Hotel in achieving a roaring business. The Hotel continued to practise its racial discrimination disallowing native Indians and making it a Europeans only Hotel.

The success however was short-lived. The hotel’s decline was gradual, but stark. It started with the death of its founder, J H Watson, which was followed by the subsequent sale of the hotel. The major cause, however, for the Watson Hotels fading away, was the stiff competition from the Taj Mahal Hotel that was set up by the legendary businessman Jamset Ji Tata in the year 1903. The historic Taj Mahal, Hotel, was opened with 400 rooms with major attractions like electric lifts, lights, bars, smoking rooms and a hotel orchestra. The Watson Hotel was formally closed down in the 1960s. The popular myth among most Mumbaikars is that the legendary Jamset Tata was denied entry to the Watson Hotel, which practiced a racial discrimination policy and restricted the hotel only to the Europeans. As a result, the Mumbaikars say, Jamset Ji built the historic Taj Mahal Hotel, which stands tall even today and is considered as the best of Hotels not just in India but globally, that was responsible for the ultimate closure of the Watson Hotel in the 1960s.

The Watson Hotel, with a history of almost 150 years, has now turned into a labyrinth of mostly lawyers offices (courtesy the buildings proximity to the High Court) and other small office space. Today, all that is left of Watson’s heydays is its magnificent iron pillars and the famed wooden staircase. Everything else has been broken up into small rooms, which have been rented out to tailors, photocopy shops and lawyers. The Esplanade Mansion, the name by which the Watson Hotel is now known, a grade II Heritage building, is perhaps the only remaining structure in India with a framework built entirely of cast iron.

If this building continues in its current status, with no proactive measures to restore this magnificent piece of heritage structure, the day may perhaps not be very far when this heritage building is gone once and for all.