EPISODE Kolkata

EPISODE occupies a bare-shell floor in Topsia, a fast-rising commercial quarter on the eastern edge of Kolkata. The concept reached back into the city's colonial memory: the Anglo-Indian gymkhana, the members' club of the Raj, of which Kolkata once had even more than Bombay. The idea was unapologetic (the Raj is back), and from an empty shell the interior was cut into a sequence of distinct chambers, unfolding one into the next.

At the center lies the ballroom, the club's beating heart. Floor, dados, and DJ console are wrapped in a single dark blue-black terrazzo, charged with metal inlays and chips of Indian marble scattered in a deliberate rhythm. Four monolithic booths anchor a high-energy central floor. Above the dado, the walls step up in linseed-oiled teak moldings, then lime plaster threaded with brass patti inlays, then mirrors and graphics, while a giant living green wall breathes at one end, a tropical note against the stone and metal.

Wrapping the ballroom is a bespoke three-panel screen of fluted glass and textured metal jali, dissolving hard walls into ribbed translucency and shadow so each room borrows atmosphere from the next. Around this core run the quieter chambers: a long semi-outdoor veranda in white terrazzo with black marble-chip inlay, stepped timber, and a royal maroon texture; a smoke room repeating that language as an open-air retreat; and a private dining chamber seating twelve, intimate and removed from the floor.

The sequence culminates in the taproom, built around a genuine invention: cocktails on tap, drawn from a microbrewery at the back. The bar itself is a forty-foot leather-faced curve with twin brass rails and a custom cage of brass, timber, and glass. Throughout, a tight palette of terrazzo, teak, brass, and green stages the gymkhana not restored but reimagined.