Fifty students, including five students from the BBC School for the Deaf and their interpreter-teacher, had an educative and creative day here on Sunday. They were taken in two buses to the Odisha Maritime Museum, Cuttack as a Heritage Education Project of INTACH, Bhubaneswar Chapter.
Five to ten students were selected from seven schools of the city, each group accompanied by one of their teachers. The DAV High School, Chandrasekharpur and the Mothers’ Public School provided the buses.
A conducted tour by Assistant Curator of the Museum Dr Adwaita Kumar Sahoo conducted a question-answer session. This was followed by interaction about the maritime history of Cuttack and Odisha with veteran dramatist and theatre personality Anant Mahapatra, who is also the State Advisor of INTACH.
Editor of INTACH’s magazine AITIHYA Anil Dhir conducted a storytelling session during which he posed and answered questions about the contribution of Odisha towards propagation of culture and knowledge to different parts of the world through Odisha’s navigation and maritime heritage in ancient and medieval times.
Executive Committee member Binod Padhi took the students to the Zobra Anicut and explained its importance to agriculture and flood control. Eminent linguist Dr Debi Prasanna Pattanayak, State Convenor of INTACH AB Tripathy, Co-Convenor SKB Narayan, Cuttack Convenor Pradyumna Mishra and other INTACH members also participated in the programme. The Maritime Museum was conceived and executed by the INTACH’s Odisha Art Conservation Centre.
INTACH Chapter Convenor H Balakrishnan informed mediapersons that the INTACH has a few more such programmes planned in the coming months. A documentation of the historic Jagannath Sadak is under way, and the publication is expected to be released before the coming Nabakalebar of the deities of the Shree Jagannath Temple at Puri.