Once upon a time: Building where Tilak lived, breathed his last lies forgotten

Sardar Gruha had once served as a guesthouse. The four-storey decrepit building seems to be desperately holding on to the shreds of a once-glorious past where it played a central part in India’s tryst with freedom. Tilak, who had frequented the guesthouse, was given a permanent room in the building where he spent his last days. He breathed his last on August 1, 1920, in a room at the guesthouse and from this, the building derives its name.

Tilak’s room today houses the office of Kesari, the newspaper started by the Maratha stalwart in 1881.

Dignitaries such as Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel had all lived in this guesthouse during their visits to the city. After Tilak’s death on August 1,1920, huge crowds had gathered around Sardar Gruha.

The turban worn by Tilak and letters in his handwriting line his room’s walls. Several paintings put up in one portion of the fourth floor is a reminder of the importance of this room.

Viren Shah, who is part owner of the building as well as owner of retail shop Roopam, said, “The building is mostly commercial now. It was in a bad shape when I bought it in an auction several years ago. Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority carried out repairs here six to seven years ago. There is a bust which is garlanded on August 1, every year. The Kesari office also operates from here and it has Tilak’s pagadi and other items related to his life,” he said.

The littered and paan-stained corridors, presently, house offices and several people also live in the building.

Sudheendra Kulkarni, chairman of Observor Research Foundation, had recently written to the chief minister, empasising the need to declare the building as a national monument.

“Lokmanya Tilak lived here when he visited Mumbai and passed away here. This year is the centenary of the famous
slogan by him – ‘Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it’. This slogan electrified the freedom movement,” he
said.
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Kulkarni has also started a campaign to seek people’s donation for the Kesari trust for carrying out renovation of
the building. “The governor of Maharashtra has supported our cause. We are not challenging the ownership of the
place. We only want that the building be recognised as a memorial and all encroachments be removed from it,” said
Kulkarni.

A press statement issued by him, around Tilak Jayanti on July 23, had said, “The facade of Sardar Gruha itself is unbearably shabby and the fact that it is right in front of the office of the Police Commissioner of Mumbai makes it more egregious. But once you enter it and climb to the fourth floor of the building where Tilak Maharaj lived in a modest two-room apartment, the insult to his memory becomes manifest.”