By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD
Going by the feedback I’ve been getting over the past few days, my last article about the enchanting moments my wife and I spent, over weekend dinners at the Gun House Imperial and Metropole Hotel, a little more than three decades ago, seems to have awakened much nostalgia among readers. While some called up or wrote to say that they were sometimes quite disappointed with their experience at these two places, most said that they too were reminded of the old-world charm that I have written about. Some seemed a little prematurely excited that with the re-opening of the Gun House restaurant they too would soon get a chance to hitch a ride on my time-machine and re-live the magical moments I had written about. Yes, they certainly were magical moments. Where else could you have seen a royal couple dancing in a trance, barely a couple of feet away from where you were seated ! Yes, the late Prince Srikanta Datta Narasimharaja Wadiyar and his wife Princess Pramoda Devi used to be on the dance floor of the Gun House quite regularly and the lady was quite a charming dancer! In fact, in those days, while her husband could be seen quite often on the cricket grounds of the Manasagangothri campus, the Gun House was the only place where you could see her as she hardly used to socialise in public view.
