Footi Kothi Indore: Haunted or Abandoned

Footi Kothi, about 1.3 kilometres from Annapurna Mandir, is the sole unfinished Holkar Dynasty architecture, abandoned and in ruins since the late seventeenth century. Footi Kothi is encompassed, by legends of supernatural happenings, thanks to its abandoned walls and frightening history dating back to the 18th century. Nonetheless, the Red Stone Palace has a lasting legacy!

King Shivaji Rao Holkar constructed the Kothi to launch an attack on the British cantonment in Mhow. A temple without a door can be found on the ground floor. The stairwell behind it leads to the Footi Kothi’s well-structured walls and wonderfully wrought columns.

I travelled from one level to the next, gripped by the enigmatic spirit of this fascinating Kothi, until I discovered that the inaccessible basement has a cowshed, nearly 300 closed rooms, and temples to numerous Hindu deities. While some say Footi Kothi is cursed, others believe that when a British officer discovered the reason for its building, he immediately put an end to its construction.

Other legends claim that while the first floor of the Kothi, which houses a temple, was built without incident, the second floor was defected due to repeated accounts of unusual accidents. Despite inviting English door fixers and masons, a baffling storm would always manage to sweep the doors away.

There are about two temples on the first floor, and others say there are a couple more in the sealed basement. It’s a far-fetched idea to imagine 300 chambers beneath these lonely walls and columns. Isn’t it massive? The Holkar Maharajah henceforth decided to depart the mansion forever after surrendering to divine powers.

This building has remained forlorn and fallow since then, with no roof and no doors. Explore this red stone edifice for its architectural magnificence and colonial links, regardless of the story you hear. It’s not all that haunted, after all.

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