A tent pitched in Curzon Park and a dish antenna (circled in red) installed on the ground. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

Even the rodents that had given Curzon Park opposite Raj Bhavan and facing Esplanade Mansion its more popular name of Rat Park and a new identity as a tourist spot have abandoned it.

Covered with flower beds till the 1940s and even later, the park is a jungle of neck-high weeds, bushes and hedges running wild and is littered with broken branches.

The outburst of vegetation has smothered the metal “tree” with “leaves” of letters from the Bengali alphabet and the memorial to the martyrs of the vernacular movement in Bangladesh created by the late artist, Badhan Das. Several giant pieces of the trunk of a large tree are piled up high on one side.

Wednesday being the 192nd birth anniversary of Karl Marx, the Marx Engels statue — one of the best pieces of sculpture to be displayed in public in recent times — at one corner of the park next to Rani Rashmoni Avenue was being garlanded in the morning. Only that tiny bit of the pavement looked clean and bleaching powder was dutifully sprinkled around it. The rest was filthy.

Close to two decades ago, the park had been taken over by the Bhasha Sahid Smriti Smarak Samity, and it was renamed as such. The name of the organisation in remembrance of the martyrs is emblazoned across the gateway made of brittle but new cast iron.

The fencing around the park has been wrenched off in certain sections, allowing free access. But as the aged and gnarled palmist sporting a beard and with his hair in a knot tied on top of his head says: “People don’t enter the park after dark as they used to before.”

He says the rats, that used to attract passersby by the droves, had fled the park about three years ago and moved to greener pastures.

“Earlier, people used to feed the rats peanuts and chick peas. Now they don’t have enough to feed themselves. They stopped feeding the rats. So they have gone elsewhere,” says a fruit seller.

The park, however, has a new resident. Bang in the middle of the wilderness, a ragged tent has been pitched and outside it is a dish antenna, obviously meant for entertainment of the occupant of the tent. He is the watchman of the park.

The public works department is in charge of the park’s maintenance, but a spokesperson clarified that on February 15 Bhasha Sahid Smriti Smarak Samity took charge of the park. It has run to seed since.

Finding its maintenance too bothersome a task, the Samity has decided to return the keys to the PWD.

Litterateur Sunil Gangopadhyay, one of the leading lights of the Samity, said: “Maintaining the park is an expensive affair. We cannot pay the durwan a high salary. We are looking for a sponsor. Taking care of the fencing is the responsibility of the police and the government.”

If one lacks enterprise, it is better to rat out.