Click to play videoKolkata: Jyoti Basu never really had a proper residence as he had gifted his own property to his wife and the party.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist patriarch spent his last days in a single room at the sprawling Indira Bhavan and died virtually a homeless man.
Basu spent the larger part of his life at 55A, Hindustan Park after his father, Dr Nishikanata Basu shifted with his family in the 1920s from their residence in north Kolkata,
Residents of the area fondly recollected their moments with the Marxist leader.
"Whenever we met him, he used to inquire how we were doing. He never missed asking about the other family members," says Basu's nephew Pranata Kumar Bose.
The adjacent property, 55B, Hindustan Park from where Basu went to take oath as state's chief minister for the first time in 1977 is now a newly built guest house where one can stay by paying room tariffs.
In the year 1989, Basu moved to a house in the DE Block of Salt Lake and lived there till the end.
Originally built to temporarily house Indira Gandhi during an AICC conference in Kolkata the house, Indira Bhavan, had no doubt been Jyoti babu's favourite place of stay.
Still replete with memories of the CPI-M patriarch including a wax replica, the house has been opened for public view for the first time.
According to Basu's trusted aides, this is where he wanted to die instead of a hospital bed. The Bengal government is mulling immortalisation of the little that's left behind.
"There is one idea on whether it can be maintained as a museum," says West Bengal PWD Minister Kshiti Goswami.
That would mean West Bengal would still be without an official residence for the chief minister.
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