Window Seat | Mrinal
Chatterjee
Heritage Walk
Recently I met Dr. Reena Bhaduri, granddaughter of Sir Asutosh
Mukhopadhaya in Kolkata. We met at the residence of Sir Asutosh in Bhawanipur, a
historical place, which now houses a museum on Sir Asutosh and also a college
run by Bharatiya Vidya Bhaban.
Nearby there are some places of historic
importance- residences of persons who changed the face of Bengal in particular
and India in general by bringing in renaissance in Bengal in 19th century.
Dr. Bhaduri was suggesting a heritage walk
through these places, organised either by State
Tourism Dept. or organisations like EZCC. I told her something like this is
being done in Old Bhubaneswar to familiarise people with the ancient temples.
It is being regularly done in Belfast, Ireland taking people through the
conflict zones and showing them the graffiti.
My friend Nita Das
tells me that such heritage walk is conducted in Ahmedabad, Gujarat by the
tourism dept with Guides.
After I posted our conversation on a social media platform
Kaveri Kumar, News Editor at PTI Kolkata wrote
that “a walk like this already exists in Kolkata
for over 20 years. It is conducted on Sunday mornings in the heritage part of
the city - Dalhousie square and north Kolkata, which is the heart of Babu
Kolkata. It a must do for many foreigners.”
I did not know this. Many including Dr.
Reena Bhaduri also did not know about this walk.
Lesson learnt: Walks like these must be
well publicised. And more such walk areas be identified and created. Efforts
must be made to make this walk a pleasurable one. The areas must be cleaned up
and made more accessible.
As the template for such walk already exists,
all that the tourism department just needs to do is to follow the best
practice.
Website
on ‘Karmaveer’ Gourishankar Roy
Gourishankar Roy (13 July 1838- 7 July 1917)
published the first Odia newspaper Utkal
Deepika in 1866. He has had a great contribution in the cultural awakening
of Odisha in the mid-19th century. He instituted several
socio-cultural organisations, which played an important role in the social and
political history of Odisha. He is considered to be one of the makers of modern
Odisha.
Unfortunately hardly any information about
him was there in the cyber space.
Pradeep Kumar Panda, an Engineer by profession has singlehandedly
created a website on him. It has a downloadable book on Gourishankar, an
anthology of essays and articles edited by Dr. Sricharan Mohanty, a link to a
documentary film on Gourishankar produced by Films Division besides other
information.
On a different note, Utkal Deepika, was re-launched on 13 July 2016 from
Bhubaneswar on Gourishankar’s 179th
birthday after 80 years. The Newly Launched paper
has exactly the same mast head like that of the Old Utkal Deepika. It is also a
weekly like Utkal Deepika used to be.
Utkal Deepika,
the first Odia Newspaper started its publication on August 4, 1866 and
continued up to 1936. Jayashish Roy, who happens to have close family link with
Gourishankar Roy is the editor of the re-launched paper.
Rain
Tip, tip. Tup, tup. Tipir,tupur.
It is raining in different rhythm throughout
the day for the last three days, turning everything around into different
shades of green including the big bare brown rocks, which is covered my moist
dark green moss.
Seeds sprout. Leaves grow. Creepers appear-
almost overnight. The forest seems to come closer every passing day.
There is a riot of life growing around me at the
valley of the Paniohala Hills, where I live. And I am loving it.
Tailpiece:
Topic
Two frogs chatting
Frog 1: tur
Frog 2: tur, tur
Frog 1: Tur, tur
Frog 2: Tur, tur, tur
Frog 1: Kur, kur, kur
Frog 2: Abe sale, topic change mat kar.
(Courtesy: Social Media forward)
***
16 July 2016
Mrinal Chatterjee, a journalist turned media academician lives on the
valley of Paniohala Hills at Dhenkanal, Odisha. He also writes fiction. His
latest book ‘Point by Point’, a collection of his columns published in Odia
daily Khabar and Sambad Kalika is being released on August 2016.
