Feb. 28: Amratola Lane, opposite Nakhoda Masjid, is so narrow and dingy that it is impossible to connect it with wealth and prosperity.

If one carefully regards the buildings lining the alleyway, which connects Rabindra Sarani with Amratola Street, one cannot miss the fact that tiny nondescript shops and eateries notwithstanding, these grimy, rundown structures have a noble lineage.

The air is still heavy with the smell of spices, the most dominant note being that of turmeric. This is where rich Muslim merchants lived once, and the Greek church was located here before it shifted to Kalighat in 1924.

The most opulent of these buildings, popularly known as Lalkothi because of its faded red colour, belongs to the Ariffs. The building - at 3 Amratola Lane - was gutted in a blaze last night.

Mansions and palaces such as this constructed inside alleyways and lanes add to the surprise element of this city. Lalkothi was constructed in 1850 by a rich Surati merchant named Haji Cassim Ariff, whose father had come from Arabia. Their main business was silk. The letterhead of Hashim Ariff Bose & Co still exists although the company wound up long ago.

Haji Cassim Ariff had many brothers. He was married to Fatima Begum, the granddaughter of Tipu Sultan. He set up Bengal Silk Mill in 1881 in Ultadanga at 13 Ariff Road, went to the UK to purchase machinery for his mill and stayed there for three months. He purchased many landed properties in Calcutta.

His great grandson, Mohammad Cassim Ariff, who heads the family trust, says the entrepreneur bought property from Prince Dwarkanath Tagore. They also owned an estate at Jangipur in Murshidabad, where they established a silk mill and produced silk cocoons as well.

The trust owns about eight tenanted buildings in the neighbourhood and a mosque near Khanna cinema.

The direct descendants of Haji Cassim Ariff occupied the building with more than 70 rooms, many of which were tenanted. Its façade is richly ornamented with stucco and terracotta and verandahs with Moorish arches.

The mansion had a huge courtyard where a godown was constructed later. The columns around the courtyard are of enormous girth, and that is discernible although little sunlight enters the ground floor. In spite of packing cases piled high, the crenellated gateway makes the building look like a castle.

The building had three wooden staircases in its various wings. The single-storey godown was partitioned into cubicles and packed with plastic goods and flammable materials.

Of late, even the space in front the building had been cordoned off to be used for storage. In spite of this abuse, it had not lost any of its dignity.