The loneliness of a gabled edifice amid a clutter of shopping centres built to optimise every square feet of the land available is accentuated by the gentry inside. They all look fifty-plus.
While sipping coffee at leisure, the fans above swirl full speed to evenly spread a hot breeze rushing in from every conceivable crevice. The anachronism surrounding the Indian Coffee House on the Civil Lines in Allahabad is complete when a liveried waiter turns up at the table to take the order.
"Do you know why BJP is holding its National Executive in Allahabad"? Abhey, popularly known as Baba Awasthi asks me with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Awasthi, former vice-president of Allahabad university, is a quintessential Congressi.
It's a precursor to the UP elections, I reply.
"No", he says emphatically.
Awasthi pauses, gingerly sprinkles salt and pepper on his cheese sandwich, takes a bite and adds, "Allahabad Congress ki tirthsthali hai. It is a sort of pilgrimage for Congressmen. This executive here is an extension of Modi's call for a Congress-mukt Bharat."
A man clad in white, with a saffron scarf wrapped around his neck, walks up to Awasthi and touches his feet. He's an aspiring BJP leader, I'm told.
"Is this a Congress-mukt Bharat or Congress-yukt BJP. The entire city is plastered with posters of Varun Gandhi," he asks as a sardonic smile flits past his quivering lips.
The BJP leader simply nods and plonks himself on the next table.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday morning laid a wreath at the Chandrasekhar Azad Memorial. Azad fell to bullets just a few kilometers from where we are.
To mark the occasion, journalists at the media centre were treated to a special 10-minute monologue by BJP MP Navjot Singh Sidhu.
Later in the evening, Modi spoke extensively on UP in general and Allahabad in particular. The PM lamented the plight of UP, seven decades after Independence. He rued the state of, what was once called, the Oxford of the East. Of its most illustrious alumnus, he mentions only Dr Murli Manohar Joshi.
There have been many before and after the former BJP president to have made a name for themselves. From Firaq Gorakhpuri to Gulzarilal Nanda, Chandrasekhar and VP Singh, it's a long list.
Allahabad is a city to have given four PM's to the country. The first one, Jawaharlal Nehru, represented the adjoining Phulpur constituency till his death.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi has already made two visits this year to the twin Nehru family mansions-turned-memorials, Anand and Swaraj Bhawan. There is a strong buzz in town that Congress is planning a nation-wide campaign to mark Indira Gandhi's birth centenary, beginning later this year. It will coincide with UP assembly elections. Will it have political overtones? Pramod Pandey, in-charge of Anand Bhawan, says he cannot shed any light on the issue.
Pandey also says he has received no information about the Prime Minister visiting Anand Bhawan or Swaraj Bhawan during his stay in Allahabad.
BJP, in its national executive, underscored many times its emergence as a truly national party. Party president Amit Shah rubbed it in by inducting two new members to the executive recently- Vijay Bahuguna and Hemanta Biswa Sarma. Both are from the Congress stock.
BJP calls it the atrophy of the Congress. Baba Awasthi however is still quite hopeful. But corrective measures need to be taken on this road to redemption.
"Manmohan Singh said minorities have the first right on the resources of this country. No other statement has damaged the Congress as much as this one," he laments.
As we bid goodbye, I wondered whether Awasthi has ever considered quitting Congress for greener pastures.
I couldn't get myself to ask him the question.
Walking back to my hotel room, I found myself humming Firaaq's famous ghazal rendered by the inimitable Beghum Akhtar.
Sar mein sauda bhi nahin, dil me tamanna bhi nahin. Lekin is tarq-e-muhabbat ka Barosa bhi nahin.
(There is no madness in my head, nor any desires in my heart.
And yet I'm not sure if this relationship has come to an end)
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