LUCKNOW, Sept. 8 -- Few outside the old quarters of Lucknow would have heard of 'Kallan ki Lat'. At the centre of a neighbourhood between Gwynne Road and Golaganj here stands the 60-foot-high obelisk installed on the grave of Colonel John Collins, a Resident of Awadh from 1804 to 1807.

After over 200 years and encroachments blocking its way, a part of the city's history seems to have been lost to time and narrates a story of neglect.

After Collins's death, the tall structure became a landmark. Locals, then, referred to it as 'Colonel ki Laat', but with time, its name changed to 'Kallan ki Lat' or 'Lat Kallan ki Lat'.

Old-timers said that the monument could be seen from a distance till the 1980s. They said the locality, which is also kn...