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Front part, GPO, Lucknow city. panoramio.com
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Lucknow General Post Office, Lucknow city is a historical building that once served as the place of entertainment for the local British community during the colonial days. The building was then known as Ring Theater, a hang out for the British to spend the holidays and week ends in fun and frolics. Right in this building, English dramas and movies were shown to keep the British cheerful. The discriminatory attitude of the then British rulers towards the Indian natives was a fact of life and at the entrance door to the building was on display a weird and disgusting sign " Dogs and Indians are not allowed". This ugly racial disparity was on full displace in a public place. It was a period of intense revelry between natives and the Europeans. Reason: The Raj never stopped its repressive rules against the natives who wanted freedom. It was a tense period at that time when Kakori trial (famous train robbery was carried out by the Indian nationalists in August 1925 between Kakori and Lucknow stations) was going on.
Lucknow, the largest and capital city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, was once the seat of power of Nawabs in the 18th and 19th centuries. Historically, it was the capital of Awadh under the control of the Delhi Sultanate and later under the Mughal rule. Subsequently the Nawabs of Awadh became independent rulers of this region. The East India company dishonestly seized Awadh from the nawabs and in 1857, soon after the rebellion, the British Raj took complete control over Lucknow and the surrounding regions.
The GPO came into being in the place of an entertainment Theater between 1929 and 1932 and the beautiful structure built in Gothic style has a big a hall and a clock tower in the middle. Standing opposite to Christ Church on the Hazratganj Crossing on the Vidhan Sabah Road, the building and the triangular shaped garden with blossoming flowers in the front attract the attention of the passers-by.
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GPO, Lucknow city. oneindia.com
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The amazing aspect of this colonial structure is, unlike many buildings constructed in that period, this one does not contain any cast iron railings, girders, or pillars, etc. It is entirely made of red bricks and limestone and is designed in such a way, the load-bearing of the overlying structure is well taken care of. The building has a beautiful 30 meter tall tower with clocks on all four sides, giving a majestic look to the building. Its architect was Henry Vaughan Lanchester (1863–1953 who also designed the famous palace in Jodhpur - Umaid Bhavan.
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GPO Lucknow city. lucknowonline.in
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The Lucknow GPO, one of the oldest postal buildings in India has been giving a diverse range of postal services of value to the people here without any break since the British time.
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