The Indian city that shines like Paris at night

While the air -conditioned bus weaves through the lively traffic of the Eastern Indian city of Kolka, the leader of the Sujoy Sen tour lists the many sights of the route.

It sounds like a momentary photo of the cosmopolitan history of the city – colonial buildings such as the General Post Office and the estate of the former British Viceroy, the temples of Hindu and Jain, Greek Orthodox and Portuguese churches, the Anglican cathedral, the homes of the freedom of the British and the British Raji.

But unlike most inheritance tours, it happens after sunset. And its main focus is not only history or architecture, but the lights that illuminate the buildings.

The Kolka Lighting Project is the most addition to the many tours and walks in the city city. G -n Saint, who runs a tourist company, has been confronted with an article in a newspaper about the city’s enthusiasts, igniting some of the great but often neglected heritage buildings. He received a list of buildings and went to check them.

“I was stunned,” he says. “I saw Paris at night. I didn’t realize that the kolka could be like that too. I wanted other people to see it.”

Himanjali Santar, born and raised in Kolka, who now lives in Delhi, joined the tour. She says the buildings themselves are familiar to her, but the illumination changes them. “As if they come to life, returning their greatness.”

The project is the birth of a group of citizens called Kolkata Restorers.

“But this is not a real organization. There is no committee, no president. This is just a label. A group of WhatsApp,” says Mudda Patteria, the power behind the venture.

He says he has not started plans to light the city. He came across an old market, crowned with a large dome and a broken clock that had numbers in Bengali, the language most often spoken in the cityS Kolka’s evangelist, he wanted to paint the dome and raised the money for him from friends and associates.

“But then I understood, while it looked good during the day, the evening couldn’t see it at all,” he says. “So, I walked past my hat again and raised money to light it.”

He ended with other money. So he also lit a temple, harvested in the historic neighborhood of North Kolka. The complex carved stone facade of the temple comes to life in the soft yellow glow of LED lights in a way that could not in raw sunlight.

Patteria was hooked. Within weeks, it was arranged for the impressive British neoclassical colonial building, which houses the geological survey of India. He soon was permitted to light one of the most famous addresses of the city – Raj Bhavan, the governor’s estate, once the residence of the British Viceroy.

“After about 21 months we are about 92 buildings,” he says. “The model is simple. This is your property, my lights. You only pay for electricity and I develop these costs in advance.”

Obtaining the correct intensity of light requires samples and errors, says lighting designer Suyash Narsaria.

“We reduced the power to make it more efficient, changed the positions, put lighting in layers to emphasize columns, railings and murals.”

But as the project expanded, PATHERYA realized that there was one problem that it did not predict, beyond the squirrels chewed through the wires. Buildings were often in a state of inability and the lighting emphasized this. Before they could light, they had to be repaired and restored.

For example, the 150-year-old Hog market, a huge Gothic market, where one can find everything from parrots to hyperlocal bandal cheese and Christmas cakes from a Jewish bakery.

But his clock tower had stopped working. They found that the roof had worn and the floor boards were rotten in the rains. The tower first had to be repaired. But it is not easy to fix watches over the age of age.

Fortunately, G -N Patteria found the man who could help him.

Swapan Dutta, a fourth -generation clock coefficient, follows his pedigree back to a great -grandfather, who works as a technician at the clock of the company from the British era Cook and Kelvi.

Mr. Duta, called “Ghari-Babu” or Clock-Man, is excited to work on the clock in the Hog market he calls the star of the clocks of the Kolka Tower. This is a watch that throws every fifteen minutes, a different tune for every quarter of an hour, a sound that the city has not heard in years.

“These watches have stopped working for years … We have to look at them, make calculations and reconstruct all the missing parts,” says G -N Duta, sitting in his small workshop. But he is confident that the clocks on the tower of Kolka will be heard again. Duh has already repaired over half a dozen clocks for G -n -PATHERYA, in churches, synagogue and old markets.

What the Kolka restorers are really trying to restore are not buildings, but a sense of pride in the city.

After the capital of British India, the wealth of the city decreases after independence. Its eclectic combination of neoclassical, Gothic and art deco architecture quickly disappears, as the old houses are inferior to apartments and malls – the land is evaluated more than the inheritance, with the owners failing to keep what remained.

“We are most talking about how the kolka is not up to date,” says Himadzhali Santar. “It’s great to see people who are excited and passionate about the city and its buildings.”

But in a city that strives for Woo Business, the inheritance is often rejected as expensive luxury and low priority.

Mr. Patherya wants to show that the restoration of inheritance can be guided by citizens and redirect.

“An apartment in one of the largest complexes in the city can cost about 150 million rupees (about $ 1.7 million),” he says. “With only 22 million rupees, we restored 92 buildings, eight or nine watches and about 1300 plaques for a tombstone.”

Patherya is not made.

On the tour of the Kolka at night, he points to almost an entire block illuminated by the restaurators of the kolkah: all the neoclassical buildings with a red brick closed on Sunday night, but glowing hot yellow.

“I want to reach 200 buildings,” he says. “Then it will be one of the most wonderful cities at night in the country. Because architecture is already there.”

Follow BBC News India on Instagram., YouTube, Twitter and FacebookS