New Delhi, Oct. 4: Once the haunt of Delhi's jet set, 3 Aurangzeb Road officially turned to 3 Dr Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam Marg in August. Most homes on the stretch, which extends from Race Course to the Christian cemetery, haven't changed their address plates yet.
The New Delhi Municipal Council had effected the change, despite protests against the move to diminish the significance of Muslim rulers by the BJP.
The property is shared by chief minister Naveen Patnaik and his sister Gita Mehta, who visits the place occasionally. The change of the road's name is yet to take effect on their bungalow's signage, although Naveen has left no stone unturned in remembering Kalam, who died in July.
Since its inception, the first condolence meet to be held at the Odisha secretariat was that of Kalam. Naveen also moved a resolution in the Assembly to condole his death. Wheeler Island in Bhadrak district - where the Integrated Test Range for rockets is located - was renamed after India's missile-man Kalam.
The bungalow, once a state house of the principality of Jubbal in Himachal Pradesh, was bought by their father, former Odisha chief minister Biju Patnaik, in the 1960s. He sold a part of it - mostly the lawns - in the late 70s to a businessman named Tejinder Singh - to finance his political adventures.
Subsequently, others too purchased parts of the property, which faces both Kalam Road and Prithviraj Road. The government acquired a part of it for the Israeli Embassy in 1992 when India, under P.V. Narasimha Rao, established diplomatic ties with the Zionist state.
At present, the property is in five parts, including the one held by the embassy and another held by the Patnaik siblings.
In Naveen's election affidavit last year, the house was valued at Rs 5.14 crore. Sources in the real estate market peg its value between Rs 110 and Rs 130 crore.
Naveen spent much of his adult life here, although his father Biju is known not to have visited the house much after it lost its main lawns and a Mughal-style pavilion to the new owners. During his stay here, the junior Patnaik authored three books and even ran a boutique named Psychedelic in the capital's Oberoi Hotel.
The bungalow - which forms a part of the lore of machismo around Biju - has seen the likes of musician Mick Jagger and editor Jacqueline Onassis, also the wife of former US President J.F. Kennedy, hang out.
It is also the best-known private residence of an Odia located at Lutyens Bungalow Zone in the heart of the national capital.
The glass covered white nameplate reads "3 Aurangzeb Road Patnaik Mehta". The road is heavily guarded by paramilitary and police personnel, as the embassy - 30 metres away - is under constant threat of political demonstrations and possible violence.
However, the guards could not prevent Naveen's porch from becoming a stage for carcasses of olive ridley turtles. On an April morning in 2006, Greenpeace laid out carcasses of 11 olive ridley turtles before the black wrought iron gate of the bungalow. The protest was to draw attention to Odisha's failure to rein in fishing trawlers that caused the deaths of the endangered turtles. On the 80km stretch from Ramchandi to Jatadhar in the first three months of that year, 2,100 turtle carcasses were found.
From behind the gates, Naveen had told the activists and mediapersons that he would take appropriate action. Twelve activists were arrested and booked for violating the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, for transporting the carcasses of an endangered creature. The Odisha government finally acted in 2013 by banning mechanised fishing on a 20km coastal stretch.
