The way to house where Ashok Kumar was born? Very few in Bhagalpur will tell

In the winding streets of Bhagalpur, most people look lost when you ask for the house where actor Ashok Kumar or dadamoni, was born. But, ask for one Cheeku Dubey's address and you will be directed to over a century old bungalow in the heart of the city.

As you walk through the iron gates, there seems to be no sign of life, barring a couple of cows grazing in the lawn and a Tata Safari and a bike parked outside the entrance. Nestled between new prosaic multi-storeyed buildings, the house stands out with its Mediterranean-like arched exteriors.

It was here at Rajbati in Adampur Chowk that Ashok Kumar was born in 1911 as Kumudlal Ganguly and he and his playback singer brother Kishore Kumar spent their childhood. At that time Bhagalpur was in Bengal Presidency. Rajbati was the home of his mother Gouri Devi.

At first glance, the house looked abandoned, with one of the large front rooms being used like a godown-- strewn with planks of wood, the wall plaster peeled off and the sun falling on it through a broken door–and another dark and bare with just two rugged cots. These rooms, it was learnt later, were rented out.

A labourer working on some construction in the property walked into the lawn. He said it was not Cheeku Dubey but a Guddu Dubey who lived in the house and had hired them to do some work.

The dilapidated facade and the two front rooms betrayed the magnificent interiors in the other part of the house. An elegant old wooden staircase led to the rooms upstairs, where Guddu Dubey and his family now lived. A young ward councillor and Cheeku Dubey's younger brother, he claimed that the house was registered in their name around two decades ago before Ira Banerjee, Ashok Kumar's cousin died. "We were caretakers here. Our ancestors took care of the house," he said. Banerjee did not have children.

Guddu said he had not changed anything in the house, including the Radha Krishna temple on the terrace where a Pujari still came to pray twice a day. He showed around the house including the room upstairs in which the actor was born, where Guddu and his wife now live. The rooms upstairs, with four-poster beds and old wooden cupboards tell a story of a glory that may have once been in Rajbati.

The kitchen was being renovated. "It's a 150-year-old house. Everything is falling apart so it needs repair," said Guddu.

The last time Kishore Kumar visited the house was in 1982, when a "Kishore Night" had been organised in Bhagalpur. Last year, his son Amit Kumar visited the house when he was in Bhagalpur for a programme and prayed in the temple of his ancestral home. Kishore Kumar died in 1987 on October 13, which happened to be Ashok Kumar's birthday. Dadamoni (elder brother) as Ashok Kumar came to be called, had studied at Presidency College in Calcutta and in the 1930s moved to Mumbai to join the film industry. He died in 2001.

Outside the house, Ram Dulari, an old woman who worked as a washerwoman for Ira Banerjee, said she remembered seeing Ashok Kumar's films. But, not many in the city have seen films of the yesteryears actor, who was recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1988 and the Padma Bhushan for contribution to Indian cinema.

In Bhagalpur, even remnants of the memory of the star who was born there may soon fade out. Next to Rajbati, Bimal Kumar runs a provision store. Asked whose house was nearby, he peeped out and pointing at it said "that? Guddu Dubey's." Did he know Ashok Kumar and Kishore Kumar? "Yes. It was their nanihal (mother's house)," he said.