Take pride in your heritage, preserve it.

As part of a lecture series organised under the banner of Virasat Pune’s Heritage Week here in the city, Prof. MK Dhavalikar talked about the way heritage and its value has changed in India, over the past few decades.

India is a treasure trove of artifacts, still found abundantly in various areas, a lot of them by the road side with vermillion applied to give them religious connotations. Many such wonderful antiques have been smuggled out of the country and some yet are part of private collections, kept away from public eye.

The first Ancient Monuments Protection Act was passed in 1882 by the British, recognising the need for a governmental administration on the protection of ancient monuments. Most of our monuments are protected by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958. The Government of India passed the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act 1972, in order to curb the smuggling of art treasures from India. This Act also helped establish ownership of antiques.

In spite of all this, very few people register their antique pieces, mostly due to lack of awareness.

The State Government should be adding museums to help relocate these treasures, but in the past 60 years, there have been hardly a handful of museums set up in Maharashtra. And by and large, there are only 2 official museums that house antiques – the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai, and the Nagpur Museum. But both have not been set up by the State. And the elected MPs and MLAs are doing very little to help.

It is this lack of responsible action and the increased want to own antiques by people from world over, that is causing the deterioration of our heritage.

For which, Prof. Dhavalikar suggests that public participation is necessary.  Preservation of heritage without giving it a religious symbolism is also important. The participation will happen only when there is awareness. And most importantly, when there is pride.

Prof. Dhavalikar quotes and emphasises, ” The quality of a civilisation depends on the respect it gives to it’s heritage.”

Happy World Heritage Day!

 

- The Heritage Week is being held in Pune from 15th April -22nd April 2012, under the umbrella of Virasat Pune.  For more details, see www.janwani.org

Heritage callings…

If I had not become an architect, I would have perhaps been an archaeologist.  I have a huge fascination for history and am constantly eager to know more. Because of which, in the past year or two, I have been enrolling in various workshops and courses on history, archaeology, architecture and heritage.

One such course that I am currently doing is a four-day workshop at the Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth (TMV) . Conducted and organised by Manjiri Bhalerao and Saili Palande-Datar for TMV and  Samvidya Institute of Cultural studies, this short exercise is being carried over two weekends, for the entire day. Called ‘Olakh Pune ani Parisarachi’ , this intense course is on Pune and its Environs, and tries to reveal different facets of Pune and its Environs, such as Geograpy, Biodiversity, Archaeology, Ancient and Medieval History, Traditions of Art; Architecture and Sanskrit Studies, Traditions of  Literature; Music; Theatre; Dance and Films, Pune in 19th Century, Independence Movement, Post Independence Pune, etc.  Many eminent experts from various fields have been brought together to lecture at this course.

Rangoli pic courtesy Manjiri & Saili

I have completed the first weekend and although have read and known about many of the aspects talked here, I have got a new insight and discovered many other facts unknown to me before. And it is a beautiful process this, to be able to keep learning and relearning. In the next post, I will share with you some of the interesting points I learnt.

I look at the history of thousands of years and I see the need of preservation and conservation of the tangible (built) and the untangible (natural, cultural to others) aspects of heritage, and at the same time I know that in 50 years into the future, what will be termed as heritage will also be the legacy we leave behind- based on our actions now.  Are we prepared for that? Or will we wait for time to tell?

Architecture and Design- the old and new!

Let’s start with the new beginnings…

India finally has it’s own body for the Design Industry. Called the ‘Association of Designers of India’ (ADI), the initiative of forming this body began a year ago, when the Pune Design Foundation and AIDI, Bangalore members decided to dissolve their respective local bodies and come together to create a pan-India body for Design. So history is being made and the Facebook group, within a matter of few days only, has a membership of 300+ designers, all raring to come together and work for Design and it’s promotion.

The ADI will be formally launched on February 10th, 2011 during the inauguration of the Pune Design Festival.

The Pune Design Festival or PDFest as it is more popularly known as, is in its 5th year and promises to be a wonderful collaboration between different design fields, with various events lined up.

Mukund and I from Sarvasva are proud and honoured too, to have been part of the founding body of both – the ADI and the PDFest. What glorious times we live in! And I’m sure, this is just the beginning of more to come.

Look up ADI on www.associationofdesignersofindia.com (the site is still coming up, will keep you all posted) and PDFest on www.punedesignfestival.org.

On another note, I have been doing a month’s course on Indian History/Archaeology and Architecture and have been learning so much of what makes this great country; including some of the renowned teachers who are taking time out to lecture and share their work and viewpoints. I especially wanted to do this course so that I could further supplement ‘Pune Walks’ (the heritage walks that our firm conducts) with the knowledge from experts.

And while I have been seeing the extreme passion and care being taken for projects in archaeology, I have failed to see the same happening in the heritage conservation/ restoration segment, especially here in Pune. And what is saddening more so is the huge gap between the ancient history (archaeology) and the modern times; which makes the middle segment of history/heritage all the more so important. And hence required to be respected, saved, documented, conserved, restored and maintained. Not retrofitted with the new only, or with the modernistic idea of what we think these buildings /structures should be. Because, if these structures are not going to be part of our present and future, we will in the long run have no link to our immediate past.

And the past is important for the future to exist.

- Darpana.