The ‘Barabati Beckons — Cuttack Heritage Walks’ (CHW) has come with a bang on each occasion as it is held on last Sunday of every month. The city has so far seen six editions of CHW and the one concluding on October 27 focused on Christ Collegiate School, earlier known as Mission School.
The CHW initiative started in April this year and the members are ever increasing walk after walk. Though there were six walks under the CHW umbrella, there were two other special heritage walks on the theme of silver filigree. The special walks were a hit as they unveiled several beautiful tales on the history of puja in the city and how the filigree tradition was intermingled with it.
Right under the emperors of the soil during the Ganga dynasty to Suryavanshi Gajapati rulers , Bhois and the great Mukundadev, the last Hindu ruler of Odisha, Barabati Fort had seen changes in the seats of power corridor as the fort was the centre of Odisha’s political and military power centre and the Afghans, Mohguls, Marathas and British rulers also did come in ruling the State.
The heritage walk thus tries to take the participants through the avenues of the past and present Cuttack with its treasure-trove of historical buildings, colonial buildings, Islamic architecture and footprints of the great maritime traditions. It’s really a great event to see through the golden past of Cuttack in the present setup of modern life which has become the order of the day with urban development elements encroaching upon the historic vestiges all across the traditional city known for its lanes, by-lanes and bazaars.
Heritage lovers of the Millennium City Dipak Samantarai, Hitesh Seth, Jivananda Misra, Deepak Kumar Nayak, Bikash Das and Satyabrat Ratho were the ones who started the initiative and now many enthusiasts from the Twin Cities are joining the event in large numbers.
While the usual path of the heritage walk holds good for the ruins of the historic Barabati Fort, Gada Chandi, Sahi Quila Mosque, Judicial Museum, Anand Bhawan, it also takes up specific sites as special inclusions like Christ Collegiate School/Mission School. Usually the walk starts at 6.30 am from near JN Indoor Stadium and takes the path and ends about 8.30 am. However, with special walks taking more time, the path also changes a bit.
During the Durga Puja season this year the two special walks involving silver filigree started around 8.30 am and went up to 1 pm or even beyond as they extensively covered the pandals, their history and how and when they took the silver and later golden ornamentation for the Goddess as the festival is unique to each pandal and its locality.
As Utkalgaurav Madhusudan Das was the brain behind the promotion and propagation of the filigree tradition, the special walks started from the entrance of Madhusudan Museum near SB Women’s College near Chandi Mandir Square. The Special Walk on silver filigree covered puja pandals of Seikh Bazaar, Alisha Bazaar, Kazi Bazaar, Binode Bihari, Chandini Chowk, Choudhury Bazaar, Ganga Mandir and Khatbin Sahi.
The heritage book publishing lane of the famous Binode Bihari area, one of the earliest places where the Durga Puja tradition started in Cuttack was also an attraction for many walkers as the book publishers and their offices and establishments still carry the grand aroma of the ink and printing materials in the era of Smart Phones and Social Media Culture.