The Calcutta Telegraph, India
March 26 2010
Gutted, her grandfather’s house – Arathoon Stephen’s descendant takes
shelter in home for old Armenians
POULOMI BANERJEE
Irene Martin and husband Jimmy Harris on Park Street the morning after
the fire. (Pabitra Das)
The granddaughter of the man Stephen Court was named after now lives
in one room of an address for old Armenians with nowhere to go, barely
a seven-minute drive away from her home that is burnt, blackened and
out of bounds.
Till Tuesday morning, the day she turned 84, Irene Martin was a
`popular, fun-loving’ resident of Stephen Court, known to most as `a
relative of Arathoon Stephen’, after whom the 18A Park Street building
was named.
On Wednesday morning, the feisty Armenian woman looked `disturbed and
dazed’ as she sat on the Park Street pavement with husband Jimmy
Harris, staring at their flat no. 27 of Stephen Court.
On Thursday morning, the homeless octogenarian woke up `incoherent and
hallucinating’ in the Sir Catchick Paul Chater Home, better known as
Armenian Home, in Park Circus.
`Irene Martin is the granddaughter of Arathoon Stephen, who built
Stephen Court and also founded the Grand hotel. Her husband Jimmy
Harris is an Englishman. They live on the second floor of Stephen
Court and we live on the first. We have been neighbours since 1965,’
Manu Lilaram told Metro.
Her Armenian friends rescued them on Tuesday afternoon. Peter
Hyrapiet, the president of the Armenian Club, recounted: `We were at
the club (at Queens Mansion) when the fire broke out and I told
another member to get Irene Martin and her husband down.’ That was
easier said than done as they did not want to leave their home.
`It was hard persuading them,’ said Cecil Milne, the honorary
treasurer of the club and the caretaker of the Armenian Home. After
getting them down, they were taken to the Home. `Ironically it was
Irene’s 84th birthday that day,’ said Hyrapiet. `We brought a cake to
try and cheer her up.’
But to little avail. The morning after, the couple slipped out and
went back to Park Street. `They are badly shaken and hallucinating,’
said Milne.
This is not the Irene friends have known for decades. `She is like an
institution on Park Street. She often walked into our showroom
(Satramdas Dhalamal at Queens Mansion), holding her trademark
cigarette,’ said couture jeweller Raj Mahtani. `She loved to dance, to
lift up her skirt and do a little hop in sheer fun,’ added Hyrapiet.
Irene would often spend time in the auction houses on Russell Street
and sit down with a coffee at Flurys.
Nora Arathoon was a friend she would spend a lot of time with. `She
was born in Calcutta and baptised in the Armenian Church here. Her
grandparents were so rich she never needed to go to work. She spent
most of her time looking after the house or taking care of her mother
(Anna). She wasn’t very young when she married Jimmy Harris. They
don’t have children.’
The grand old lady of Park Street, whose grandfather was the first
managing director of Stephen Court Ltd, was described by neighbour
Lilaram as being `very nice, very fond of music’. His son, Vijay,
fondly added: `A strong personality, a commanding voice and the gift
of the gab.’
That is something even the Queen got a taste of. `Irene loved to
recount her tea tryst with Queen Elizabeth II when she had visited
Calcutta in 1961,’ said a friend.
‘ WITH MOHUA DAS
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