Chhatawala Lane

Chhatawala Lane is linked to Marco Polo’s repeated absences from the hotel and to a troubling encounter in a dark building that he cannot put behind him. The lane’s significance lies less in any description of its surroundings than in the uncertainty and unease attached to Marco’s visits there.

Marco Polo’s Visits

Bose-da reports that Marco Polo has often been away from the hotel and has spent nights on Chhatawala Lane. This pattern worries him, especially as Jimmy is trying to form a faction of his own. With Byron requesting an urgent meeting, Bose-da suspects that a major change may be approaching, though he does not know what Marco’s visits mean.

The Dark-Building Encounter

The lane is also the setting of an encounter in a dark building that Marco has not been able to overcome. The account gives no further details about what happened there, but makes its continuing effect clear: when Marco later speaks of seeing Lisa again after a long time, the narrator recognizes that the earlier encounter still weighs on him.

Narrative Significance

Chhatawala Lane remains an offstage, unexplained destination. The contrast between Marco’s frequent nights there and his unresolved response to the dark-building encounter makes the place a marker of private disturbance within the hotel’s everyday routine. Bose-da’s concern gives those absences a wider consequence: they feed his expectation that the hotel’s circumstances are about to change, without yet revealing how.