Under the hammer: An auction in progress at Russel Exchange

Sunday jumble: Wares on display at Russel's

Chippendale yesterday; chowmein today. The fall from the sublime to the ridiculous sums up Sumit Basu's Sundays. Until just the other Sunday, Basu, the head of administration at Citibank's Kolkata operations would drop in at Staynor, the 110-year old auctioneer on Kolkata's Free School Street, for the weekly auction. An antique furniture aficionado, there have been occasions when Basu has returned with a Chippendale sideboard-as authentic as a Chippendale can be at an auction in Kolkata, and for a mere Rs 5,000. But Basu will have to find something else to do with his Sundays. Staynor, which once traded in Sheraton desks, Italian marble busts, even Baccarat decanters, has downed its shutters. In its place stands a Chinese dive.

It isn't just Staynor; Victor Brothers, once the place where the city's smart set shopped for anything from furniture to Lalique vases to tasteful bric-a-brac has a large 'For Sale' sign in front. The redoubtable Gloria Walker, still sprightly for her 60 years, is ready to sell out, a possibility that would have made the front pages of the city's papers in Victor Brothers' glory-days when Walkers' mother Josephine Dewity Mehra presided over Sunday auctions with the kind of grace that can only be found during Tea at the Ritz. "Like the races, auctions were a place to be seen," reminisces Walker. "Every Sunday the crème de la crème of Kolkata would come to Victor to bid for a painting by Daniellei or a Steinway piano." It's been some comedown since: Victor Brothers' interiors are dusty; the 2,000-square feet space is stocked with some furniture of indeterminate origin; and Walker conducts her business from an office that boasts an ancient wooden swivel chair and a green-baize topped table. The only incongruous note is a computer.

LIVE AUCTION A few gardens have started selling directly to customers, but the tea-auction has lost none of its zing.

Nilhat House: Despite booming direct sales, the tea auction lives on Every Tuesday, at a little before nine in the morning, a group of men, and the occasional woman, step into a long oak-panelled room at Nilhat House in Kolkata, home to one of India's leading tea auctioneers, J. Thomas & Company. On display are several bags with labels such as Singthom, RamNugger, and Buxa. At 9.00 a.m, an auctioneer from J. Thomas (he'll sport a company tie) or from rival auctioneer Caritt Moran & Co walks in and bangs his gavel on the table-and so begins the world's largest tea auction. For the next three hours garden-owners watch brokers, exporters, and corporates like HLL, Nestle, and Tata Tea, fight it out for the precious leaves. The bidders are experts: they know that a kilogram of Darjeeling Jung Pana 2 will cost anything between Rs 1,800 and Rs 2,300, not less, not more. And that a kilogram of Hathimara Buxa will not cost more than Rs 40. A few gardens are staying away from auctions. "None of the Steinthal produce is sold through auctions," says Mohan Chirimar, the owner of the Steinthal and Singthom gardens in Darjeeling. Nor is any of the produce of renowned gardens such as Makaibari, Ambootia, and Lingia. The reason? Direct deals fetch better prices. Ambootia, for instance, is happy dealing directly with Harrod's. "It's far more profitable," explains owner Sanjay Bansal. Still, the number of gardens eschewing auctions is small. And a tradition lives on.

Walker's brother David Mehra believes auctioning is dead. He sells directly to interested customers. Not too long ago, people would drop by at Victor Brothers on Sundays; the Chinese vases may not have been Ming, but they were at least a couple of centuries old. "There were rivalries too," says Mehra. "The Rays of Bhowanipore would give anything to outbid the Mullicks of Chorbagan, and either way, we made money."

The few auction houses that have survived have changed with the times. Dalhousie Exchange's Soumitro Basu trades in anything. "My father used to source rare antiques," he says, "but I am happy with what I get-even doors and windows will do."

A Death Pre-ordained

Kolkata's auction industry was ordained to die. "Some rich Parsi, Bengali, and Armenian families had seen auctions in the west and wanted to replicate the model here," says Mohammed Salim, who owns auction house Russel Exchange. "But with the decline of the Raj, their fortunes waned." And atrophy set in. Salim bought Russel Exchange in 1981 from one such Armenian, Gary Arathoon. His strategy may not find favour with the purists, but it works: go to a client's house, pick up all the disposable stuff, and hold a jumble sale on Sunday. "Most people who buy furniture are looking to recycle the wood," says Dalhousie Exchange's Basu, explaining why old door and window frames are in demand. On a good day, an auctioneer can expect to sell goods worth Rs 5 lakh (it earns a 10 per cent commission on this). In 1970, says Mehra, "The Maharajah of Cossimbazar's lot generated revenues of Rs 17 lakh in one day."

Faded glory: Once auction house Staynor, now a Chinese joint

Tapan Mitra, the Chairman of the West Bengal State Planning Board, and an avowed auction freak, isn't surprised by the decline of the auction culture. "Today's pace of life does not allow anyone to waste time at auctions." And those who can afford the time, don't have the money to sustain the trade. Ergo, people who once believed auctions would maximise returns on the sale of their furniture, jewellery, or prized artifacts, have started looking elsewhere. "The yield from auctions is much lower and the process is time-consuming," complains Ranjan Deb, a city-based lawyer who comes from the Sovabazar Raj family, once considered the first-among-equals in Kolkata's social hierarchy. "It is better to go in for a negotiated sale," adds Deb, whose extended family has sold, directly to buyers, a range of collectibles from rare oils on canvas to cameos from the House of Aspreys, London. That's true of other Kolkata blue-bloods too: recently, when the Rs 3.5-crore Tanksalwalla collection was put on the block, it wasn't through a city-based auction house: the venue was a five-star hotel in Mumbai and the auctioneer was Dolly Thakore, a celebrity emcee. "There are people ready to pay a price for our heirlooms, and they are collectors who do not visit auctions," says Deb.

The Kolkata auction industry has also been hit by a supply-side constraint: there are few old bungalows in the city with the kind of furniture and bric-a-brac that made Victor Brothers and Staynor a connossieurs' delight in the past. Dalhousie's Basu confesses that the business is all about "trading in commodities, not selling a piece of history", but is convinced that it does have a future. "There will always be embassies with odds and ends to sell." Walker and Mehra think otherwise, and are waiting for someone with enough money to buy 4,500-square feet of space on Kolkata's Park Street where Victor Brothers is located. These Sundays Citibank's Sumit Basu has to countenance his father, a former chief accountant at Burmah Shell, telling him about the good old days, when he would wear his grey suit, drive down to Victor Brothers in a Hillman, and bid for a Wedgwood lamp.

TREADMILL

Choosing The Right Gym A fter operating his gym for three years, the owner of the gym I've been religiously going to (okay, not so religiously perhaps) suddenly decided last fortnight to shut it down because of "an unavoidable circumstance". That, I probed and found, was an innate desire to turn the gym into a warehouse for his other business-manufacturing electric lamps. My gym wasn't a swank, state-of-the-art place. In fact, it was more like a dump, albeit a functioning one. It had a reasonable number of training equipment that worked, a couple of trainers who knew a bit about gymming and was open from six in the morning to nine at night. But it wasn't the best you could get. The prime reason for it was that the owner wasn't serious about it. But you probably guessed that already from the alacrity with which he switched it to a warehouse. If you're wondering why I'm babbling about my erstwhile gym, which is now a godown probably full of lamps and tubelights and what have you, it is because choosing the right gym is the first and most important task in beginning a serious exercise regime. Here's my way of looking for a gym: First, check out the owner. If he looks physically unfit-the kind that has never got on a treadmill-then just forget it. He may turn it into a high-calorie fast food joint. Or, just not be interested in maintaining it well. A badly-maintained gym can cause injuries and, moreover, be a disincentive to going there regularly. Next on your checklist is a close hard look at the equipment. If a gym is stacked with cheap treadmills, rusty dumb-bells, and rickety benches, just flee. Check also whether the gym has enough treadmills and other cardio-vascular exercise equipment; you wouldn't like to queue up for a session. Ventilation and proper air-conditioning are important and many gyms especially the ones that are sprouting up in urban basements skimp on those. It's unhealthy to exercise in a stuffy, poorly ventilated room. And it's unsafe to use gyms where there aren't experienced trainers or spotters. Check the credentials of the hunk who's passing himself off as the gym instructor or trainer. Does he have professional qualifications? How many years has he been on the job? Does he understand your needs, goals, etc? To be sure, good trainers are more important than flashy décor and expensive new equipment. Last but not least, look for a gym that is close to your home or office. There's no point in being a member of a gym if it's too far to go to. -MUSCLES MANI