When vintage refuses to become archaic

Author: Namrata Kohli

The difficult thing about vintage is not simply preserving it. It is preserving its relevance.

An old building can become a relic. An antique can disappear into a glass case. But when heritage remains part of contemporary life, something interesting happens. Like wine, it can become more mature, coveted and desirable with time.

I recently encountered two striking examples: BrijRama Palace in Varanasi and the frescoes of Shekhawati.

At BrijRama, the past has quite literally checked into the present. The palace on the banks of the Ganga dates to 1812, when it was built by Shridhara Narayana Munshi. Its Maratha vocabulary survives in carved sandstone pillars, floral and betel-leaf motifs and semicircular bastions. Another layer arrived after Maharaja Rameshwar Singh Bahadur of Darbhanga acquired it in 1915, bringing Greco-Roman influences, sculptures and river-dolphin carvings.

Crucially, these layers have not been stripped away to create a sanitised luxury hotel. “BrijRama Palace is not a museum. It is a living palace where guests dine, stay, celebrate and move through these spaces every day,” says Manish Singh, General Manager, BrijRama Palace. Guests pay upwards of Rs 40,000 a night even in the lean season. Heritage, kept relevant, acquires not just cultural but economic value.

Even food becomes a carrier of memory. Traditional Banarasi dishes such as potli ki subzi and dal panchmel in the Darbhanga thali coexist with Aangan’s contemporary 10-course vegetarian tasting menu. One preserves, the other reinterprets. Neither erases what came before.

Younger travellers too are curious. Singh says guests pause before frescoes, mirrorwork, sculptures and carved stone, wanting to know the stories behind them. Suddenly, an old object is no longer merely old.

Shekhawati offers another lesson. Its extraordinary frescoes documented a changing India with audacious eclecticism. Gods and goddesses coexist with colonial influences, everyday life, images inspired by Raja Ravi Varma, film stars and even erotica.

Shruti Nada Poddar, heritage conservationist, Founder and Managing Trustee, Shruti Foundation, and Founder, MOHAR, describes Shekhawati’s fresco art as distinctive because “it encompassed the world and its elements”, witnessing spirituality, culture, colonial influence and Swaraj.

But keeping the past relevant does not mean making it look new. Poddar points to old frescoes being painted over with modern chemical paints in the name of restoration. “Many artists completely cover the original frescoes by painting over them, which amounts to actual destruction rather than conservation,” she says. Sometimes, conservation requires little more than gently removing dust; where intervention is necessary, traditional techniques and natural colours are critical.

There lies the challenge. How do we keep heritage accessible without turning it into spectacle? Economically viable without making it artificial? How do we allow the present in without pushing the past out?

India does not suffer from a shortage of heritage. We suffer, sometimes, from a shortage of patience with it. Not everything old needs a makeover. The past needs to be understood, used, loved and passed on.

The best heritage does not ask us to live in yesterday. It allows yesterday to live with us today. And that is when vintage becomes timeless.

The writer is an author, podcaster and a Senior Fellow at the Ministry of Culture, Government of India; Views presented are personal.