How would we judge the condition
of Kolkata, if we had to?
Economically speaking, it is
developing sustainably, regardless of what propaganda posters and manifestos
may say. Socially speaking, development should exist if the city’s economy is
doing well, although there is no parameter against which we could accurately
understand where the society of this metropolitan is heading towards. Another
aspect about this city that is in doubt is whether it Kolkata really the “City
of Joy”, as it has been tagged for a few decades. Social happiness is highly
subjective, reducing our ability to evaluate whether the city if really joyous
in its various aspects. But does Kolkata really depict the picture that could
demonstrate the appropriateness of its bestowed title?
This project was started by us
with the intention of understanding the historic culture of this city through a
number of heritage buildings, whose richness was one of the factors that led to
its recognition of the cultural capital of India. However, in this process, we
realised the state of these buildings was rather unfortunate. W think that the “attempts” at
restoring these buildings, obvious to perception, have been unsuccessful to the
extent that made us doubt if the future would consider these monuments worthy
of recognition.
This made us focus our project
on capturing the present state of these buildings and the reasons for which
they are worthy of notice from the public and the civil authorities. Our
purpose is to portray the cultural and aesthetic values of this city that are
fading with the passage of time, and the need to restore this part of the
city’s culture back to its original state successfully.
We hope that our attempts at
depicting and informing about the aforementioned state of these buildings have
been accurate.
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This blog is an initiative by students of The Heritage School, avid filmmakers and above all, long-time Calcattans:
Laksh Banthia
Sayak Chatterjee
Dhairyya Singh
Surit Thekken
