Kolkata, the living city: How citizens revived their culture and heritage

Kolkata is aspiring to acquire the coveted Unesco World Heritage City tag

Shaikh Sohail’s brisk gait is contagious. Leading a motley group of students, school teachers, pensioners, software employees and photographers across the length and breadth of Kolkata’s office para (neighbourhood), Dalhousie, he introduces the majestic buildings of this colonial precinct: the Currency Building with its glazed Italian tiles and vaulted skylight; the white Greco-Roman statues atop the red Writers’ Building; the tomb of the city’s founder, Job Charnock, at St John’s Church; the famed Auckland Hotel in its latter-day avatar as the LaLiT Great Eastern. At every corner they turn, there’s history. 

Kolkata now has a growing band of walkers, exploring diverse facets of the city — from a “Bangla Sahitya Walk” (alleys of Bengali literature) in North Kolkata to food walks that uncover the city’s rich palate. Weekdays, Sohail works as a project leader at a telecom company in New Town; on weekends, he pursues his passion — leading walks through his outfit, Breakfree Trails. “Earlier these walks were a niche activity but now there’s immense interest to know about heritage buildings lying unnoticed,” beams Sohail. His walks are priced between Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 per person — and there are plenty of takers.

Sneered at for years as a “dying city”, Kolkata — the city that is still Calcutta to many — has been witnessing a revival of sorts. Many citizens now call its architecture not “relics” but “rich built heritage”. “The city has always been steeped in history,” says State Heritage Commission member Partha Ranjan Das. “But it’s only now that ordinary citizens are growing aware of it and actively exploring it.”

One of the guest rooms before and after restoration. Photos: Deepanjan Ghosh

With people from varied walks of life evincing interest in the city and its urban heritage, an ambitious movement has begun: to acquire the coveted Unesco World Heritage City tag for Kolkata. (Ahmedabad is the only city in India to boast World Heritage City status.) The push first came from the Ministry of External Affairs Secretariat in Kolkata and its director, Kajari Biswas. The Indian Foreign Service officer, who has served at several missions abroad, says she always wondered how historic cities like Cairo, Rome, Barcelona survived on the income from the tourism economy, whereas Kolkata with its rich colonial legacy, its central role in the freedom struggle as well as in the Bengal Renaissance, has done nothing to capitalise on it. “Heritage tourism has great commercial and economic potential for a city like Kolkata,” believes Biswas.

If Biswas set the ball rolling, an array of stakeholders including citizen groups like the Kolkata Architecture Foundation (a platform that supports architecture for social change), GetBengal.com (a portal that showcases diverse aspects of Bengal’s culture) and BanglaNatak.com (an organisation that promotes the development of traditional arts and culture) has joined in. Academics, architects, town planners, artists as well as representatives from Intach, the Ministry of Railways and Unesco got together at a day-long workshop last December at the Indian Museum to brainstorm on the road map for World Heritage City nomination.

One of the many heritage walks in the city. Photo: Sourav Mondal

The focus of this workshop, the first of its kind, was on the need to formally “zone” the varied heritage clusters like the Dalhousie precinct, the mansions of North Kolkata and the old paras of South Kolkata. Scholars and urban conservationists are stressing the need to document all heritage structures, demarcate heritage zones and move towards strengthening laws to protect “heritage corridors” from demolition.

The ornate mansions and rajbaris of North Kolkata, the erstwhile bastion of the zamindars and the Bengali elite, have always been a photographer’s delight. Today, the old neighbourhoods teem with college-going photo enthusiasts and their ubiquitous smartphones. It is these forgotten mansions that interested installation artist Anuradha Pathak too. For over a year Pathak has been working on creative projects in the Chitpur area of North Kolkata. “As an artist, I see their courtyards, or dalans, as public-private spaces. Unfortunately, with time their social and cultural significance has got lost. Opening up private courtyards to members of the public is a step towards the conservation of the structure as well as the cultural ethos,” says Pathak.

A phanoos being set off in a North Kolkata courtyard. Photo: Anuradha Pathak

At the Dawbari (house of the Daw family) on B K Pal Avenue, Pathak organised several events in the outer courtyard where the public was invited to participate along with the family. Thus, a carom tournament and mime skit enacting the drama in the lives of large joint families attracted crowds from the neighbourhood as well as visitors from elsewhere. The phanoos (paper lantern) display also generated a lot of excitement. Phanoos competitions were a popular tradition, particularly among the elite of North Kolkata. “The biggest achievement I felt was the shift in the perspective of house owners — from perceiving their homes as a liability to being happy about the space being utilised in a creative manner,” says Pathak.

For Ajoy Dutt, 67, of Beadon Street, the experience was “oshadharon (extraordinary)!” So delighted was he with the phanoos workshop held in the large thakur dalan (courtyard) of his home, Bholanath Dham, that he has decided to hold more such events through the year. “Phanoos-making has been a tradition in our family since 1925. But with Anuradha’s workshop, when even art college students came to learn, it was wonderful. Earlier people would gather here only during Durga Puja. With such activities the dalan also gets maintained more regularly.”

Much of a city’s character and identity is shaped by its buildings and its architecture. So the rowak (wide sitting area) at the entrance to old houses would see locals and senior citizens animatedly discussing their life and times, indulging in the quintessentially Bengali pastime of adda. With old houses being poached by local developers, such scenes are becoming a rarity.

A handful of enterprising architects is taking on the challenge of reusing old residential buildings rather than tearing entire buildings down. “Adaptive reuse” is common in historical cities like London and Paris; in Kolkata too, a host of galleries, B&Bs and restaurants has opened up in old buildings. Old neighbourhoods of South Kolkata, such as Hindustan Park and Dover Lane, have come alive with hangouts, studios and restaurants that operate from old residential buildings. The Zs’ Precinct in Dover Lane has an eclectic store and art gallery. In Hindustan Park, the pop-up mini umbrellas outside Art Rickshaw, an art space, are bright markers of a locality. Art Rickshaw recently transformed its exterior by painting a gigantic map of old Kolkata, with the river Hooghly taking centre stage and the city developing along its banks. Located opposite to it is Byloom, now a veritable byword for chic handwoven saris sported by celebrities such as filmmaker Aparna Sen. It also draws the young crowd with its popular café, Canteen.

People from across the city descended on Hindustan Park in January for the Kolkata Arts Lane festival. A day-long open-air art festival, it brought together both the traditional and contemporary arts of Bengal on a single street. “Not only did we paint the entire street, our attempt through this festival was to make art more inclusive, accessible and even affordable,” says 22-year-old Devanshi Rungta, creative director of Art Rickshaw, which organised the festival. So while there were artists selling their works in a flea market atmosphere, art installations and traditional crafts like Patachitra were on display as were live Baul music and food stalls. International non-profit Earth Day Network’s Neela Majumdar, who frequently visits the area, says, “Hindustan Park is the quintessential Bengali para that has seen a renaissance through commercial and cultural activities.”

The city is also becoming a hub for designers working with organic fabrics. Developing the traditional textile heritage of Bengal, Shantanu Das of Maku Textiles has been specialising in a single dye — indigo, and only natural dyed indigo. Bengal was the hub of indigo cultivation during British rule. The National Institute of Design graduate shifted his brand, Maku, six years ago from Ahmedabad to his hometown Kolkata “to work closely with the weavers of Bengal”. Despite the label becoming an object of desire in fashionable wardrobes across India, Das sells his revivalist clothes only from his studio in South Kolkata’s Bondel Road.

Dilip Seal of the iconic Annapurna Printing Press. Photo: Reena Chowdhury

The Calcutta Bungalow in Shyambazar in the northern fringes of the city is another experimental idea, where a 1920s house built in the classical style has been restored and converted to a six-bedroom B&B. Each room represents a different neighbourhood of North Kolkata: Boi Para refers to the College Street hub of old books, and the master suite, Saheb Para, is a nod to the “Englishman’s locality”, with its star attraction, a brass bath tub in the bathroom. The house has effects such as old paintings, photographs, antique furniture, and even trade tools like wooden sandesh moulds. 

The B&B that opened its doors only in May 2018 is already listed number one on Trip Advisor’s speciality lodgings in Kolkata. Says Iftekhar Ahsan, the proprietor, “We attempt to give to our guests the traditional hospitality of a Bengali home while at the same time offering them a unique experience of the history of Kolkata and showcasing a neighbourhood.”

In an attempt to acquaint the younger generation and the inhabitants of the city with the rich artistic legacy of one of the most iconic neighbourhoods of North Calcutta, Chitpur or modern-day Rabindra Sarani, the Chitpur Craft Collective recently organised an expansive Art Trail that wound its way through the area’s lanes and bylanes. Held under the aegis of The Kolkata Festival in February, the trail led participants to explore the varied arts and crafts based in the area: jewellery designers, book binders and printers, stamp-mould makers, bamboo artisans, calligraphers... Starting off the Art Trail at Minerva Theatre, which in its heyday was home to the famous Bengali jatras (theatrical performances), the trail was an opportunity for visitors to experience a part of the city few knew about. 

In Garanhata Lane, the gold and silver jewellery making hub for over a century, Shantanu Santra eagerly demonstrated the intricate processes involved in crafting a jewellery mould from solid iron. Delighted with the exposure and the curious audience, Santra says, “It’s not often that we have people coming to learn about our craft. Thanks to The Kolkata Festival people are trooping in from across the city to our workshops.” Taking just a piece of copper, Santra demonstrates how it is plunged into the burning coal before the design is embossed on it. He hands over the copper piece, which by now has been transformed into a goddess’ face, to keep as a souvenir.

A few metres ahead is the Annapurna Printing Press. The Seal family that owns it has been in the printing trade for generations and has a 130-year-old letter press machine from Ohio, Cleveland, which is still in use. Dilip Seal, one of the proprietors, points at some old prints made by the machine of Biye Barir Kabita (wedding day poetry): “We are in a way the keepers of cultural traditions. These poems would be composed by family members of the bride and groom and they would come to us to have it printed.”

Quite aptly the penultimate stop on the trail is one that caters to the famous Bengali sweet tooth. Located amidst the bustling Natun Bazar, Makhan Lal Das & Sons dates back nine generations, to the 1830s. Supervising the making of the traditional sweets, sandesh made of chhana (thickened milk), in the sprawling shop cum work area, Shib Nath Das says, “We specialise in sandesh — kesar sandesh with a dash of saffron, pink rose sandesh, brown chocolate sandesh and the nolen gurer sandesh made with fresh jaggery in winter.” Unlike the regular sweet shops with display shelves, Das simply has all the sweets on offer for the day displayed on two large brass thalas (plates).

If North Kolkata is one distinct “heritage corridor”, still another distinct heritage cluster is to be found in the area adjoining the port called Metiabruz, where the last Nawab of Awadh who was exiled to Calcutta by the British settled with his entourage. The area still bears vestiges of Awadhi culture, replete with grand mosques, imambaras and, of course, Awadhi cuisine — biryanis, kababs, haleem.

Jewellery mould maker Shantanu Santra. Photo: Reena Chowdhury

Being a port city, heritage in Kolkata is not confined to just the city buildings but even extends to the river front that it enjoys with the River Hooghly. Old records of the Kolkata Port Trust confirm that the “port-city of Calcutta” was once “the second busiest port of the British empire”. An often overlooked heritage feature along the river Hooghly are its ghats; most of these ghats still bear the original ornate arched gateways and bathing areas.

Walking down from Babughat, along the newly renovated Strand overlooking the picturesque Hooghly River, the chaos of the city recedes as the welcome breeze and gentle lapping sound of the water takes over, enticing you to take a boat ride on one of the many steamers that ferry passengers across the river. Resume a leisurely stroll, and it will culminate at an equally picturesque monument at Prinsep Ghat, the “Palladian porch”. Built in 1843 in memory of colonial scholar James Prinsep, the fluted marble columns of the monument had fallen into disrepair. After extensive restoration, the monument is today a must-visit destination, especially after sunset. Enhancing its beauty is the Second Hooghly Bridge (Vidyasagar Setu) seen in the background of every photographic frame. It’s no surprise that Prinsep Ghat is becoming a favourite hangout with youngsters, no less popular than the iconic Victoria Memorial itself — selfie spots are always in demand.

Adding another dimension to the city’s heritage paradigm, historian Raj Sekhar Basu of Calcutta University argues, “The history of the city is not the history of the rich and the middle class alone; the city also belongs to the subalterns, the Hindustani labourers from Bihar and the working classes.” Highlighting the importance of the Calcutta port in these “living histories”, Basu points out the landmarks in the port area associated with the Bhojpuri-speaking indentured labour from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar; the jetties from where they departed to work in the plantations in the British colonies including Jamaica, Fiji, Suriname and Trinidad. The historian, who grew up in the port and the adjoining Garden Reach area, recalls names such as Suriname Ghat (from where labourers boarded ships to Suriname), Mai Baapghat (labourers addressed the British masters as Mai Baap) and emphasises, “Calcutta has played a big role in histories of migration, which deserves to be recognised.” 

With so much interest and activity surrounding heritage in the city, these efforts need to coalesce to realise the goal of having Kolkata labelled a Unesco World Heritage City. If that does happen, it will be a fitting testimony to a city that has transitioned from Calcutta to Kolkata and is showing every sign of reinventing itself yet again.