Lively Waters of Kolkata
Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, owes its origin to its waters. If it was not for its strategic location opening up to the Bay of Bengal through the Hooghly River, the three villages of Kalikata, Gobindapur and Sutanuti would not have evolved into what we know as the city of joy today. The history of this city goes back to the 16th century when the river acted as a gateway to the rest of the world, as this location marked a central point connecting the West to the East. Ever since the first ship sailed into the city, it was the beginning of a cultural confluence, evidence of which is still seen today.
Calcutta was often referred to as a wetland itself. However, with the endeavour to develop the city, a lot of water bodies may have been filled up but in order to connect the city to the sea, the colonial rule and the citizens, had a huge role in the development of its water infrastructure. Be it the Ghats, the fountains, the tanks, the ponds, the canals or the wetlands, Calcutta is still a very strong contender when it comes to its cultural and natural water heritage. Thus, “জল-জ্যান্ত কলকাতা”- which literally translates to the Lively Waters of Kolkata. The connotation also signifies the inherent connection between water and the city – ‘many waters’ (rivers, canals, creeks, swamps, marshes, and ponds) of Kolkata, an interconnected web, determining the sustenance and survival of the urban. The fate and functioning of every city are shaped by water infrastructures – quantity and quality of, and access to water. But the story of Kolkata is special when glimpsed through the water lens. It is complex, multi-layered, and historical – a rich hydro-social narrative of water and society remaking each other across space and time.
Kolkata is a delta city – reclaimed from the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove delta in the world and a UNESCO heritage site. It is in her water infrastructure, architecture, and (re)configurations that the anecdote of origin, the account of functioning, and the apprehension of the survival of the city are anchored. The River Hooghly in the west, the River Bidyadhari in the east, the saline marshes further east, and the numerous creeks and channels in between, facilitated the selection of this space as the most potential imperial site performing dual functions of trade-transportation and drainage-sewerage-sanitation with minimal hydrological interventions. Kolkata’s water histories are imbricated with checkered existence, encounters and exchanges among bureaucrats, hydrologists, architects, planners, fishers, farmers, and citizens. They include moments of awe, anxieties, scientific-engineering acumen, crafting path-dependent conjectures and their impacts on the city’s water past, present, and posterity.
But how can this rich and conjoined water history and heritage of Kolkata be explored and disseminated to a wider audience? No singular methodology can do justice to this. They are preserved in the dusty documents of the colonial archive or complicated quantitative calculations compiled in log books of post-colonial municipal departments. They also flamboyantly flaunt themselves in (un)known urban corners and peri-urban alleys. They are felt and embodied along (in)tangible materialities carving and dotting Kolkata’s waterscape.
The ‘Lively Waters of Kolkata’ – a Living Waters Museum initiative, compiles, collates and curates the water history of Kolkata by hosting plural storylines conveyed by researchers and practitioners, young and old, deploying multi-modal approaches accommodating ethnography, archival work, visualization techniques, and multi-media. The contemporary is navigated through the lineages of the past towards a more inclusive and sustainable water trajectory.
By taking a digital troll through the ghats of Kolkata or a transect walk along the Adi Ganga, a detailed probing into the spectacular Rabindra Sarovar Lake or the non-human agents interacting and intra-acting within the peri-urban wetlands, the viewer may metamorphose into an active participant not only immersed in experiencing ‘jol-jyanto Kolkata’ but also envisioning an equitable and resilient water future for the city.
To the people, by the people and for the people of Kolkata!