Day Seven - The Hooghly River, Jute, and Bricks

The boat in the foreground was our river tour boat. We were doing this tour in conjunction with Calcutta Walks, the tour group we walked Dalhousie Square earlier in the week. The weather was pleasant as it was much cooler on the river.

We had breakfast (the fruitcake was amazing!) and lunch on the boat.Our first destination was the Jute Mill. Jute is a sustainable fiber that has a lot of potential for our site. There was a rhythmic "tum-ta-tum-ta-tum-ta-tum" here on the top of the roof, standing on a viewing platform.
Inside, the sound turned anxious with floating specks of jute fiber and machine cacophony.

Alas, I cannot provide you the feeling of being there -- the thudding and clacking of machinery, but perhaps this video can give you an idea...

The fragrance throughout the entire (interior) complex was one of fabric dipped in mineral spirits. No... that's not quite right.

We anticipated seeing a crafts village... but, the village which belonged to the Jute Mill was the crafts village and it was simply uninspiring. Our boat guide made a quick call and we steamed over to the community of Akra to see a brickyard.
A fisherman's boat above. Lest you forget that you're in a democratically-elected Communist state...

The brickyard... each of those bricks are cast by hand...The oven. We're standing around it.
When we got back to Kolkata, most of us spent the afternoon shopping :D

In the interest of present-day time synchronization, Day Seven was Thursday, March 26th.

Day Six - Zoo, Jadavpur, and CBE

We had the morning free but were told that we had to be at the Fine Arts Academy by 4:30pm for the Centre for the Built Environment (CBE) group presentation. I believe there were at least three groups -- one went off to Jadavpur University to see their program, one went off for shopping, and the third went off to the Zoo. Guess where I went? :)

The top image is the Nilgai, and just above is the Sarus Crane. Both native to south/south-east Asia. We couldn't go to the Sundarbans so we got to see the Bengal Tiger in it's "emulated" habitat...

And the star attraction is.... hippos! Please note that I'm only an advocate of hippos being in zoos for the sake of the gene pool, research and education (for those who cannot go to Africa and the hippos in their native habitat).
Mama hippo and baby hippo! The baby hippo is on the right, in what looks like a protrusion from the water edge.And of course, we're in India -- so no trip to the zoo would be complete without seeing the Indian elephant! Here's a photo shoot of Mike's shenanigans... :)

Jadavpur University, Architecture Department

The other group went to Jadavpur University's Architecture Department to see what they do there. I was told by Josh and Matt that walking into that place was like walking into an abandoned building -- all the desks were empty and had a thick film of dust on them. There were only two architecture students around and even they had very little to show. The image below I assume to be from one of their architecture studios:

International Seminar: Water and City

The seminar on Water and City was meant to be a significantly larger program. I believe there were plans to co host a conference on water at RISD and Brown but things fell through except for having a landscape/architecture studio/seminar course and this seminar in which the Centre for the Built Environment (CBE) presented some of its scholars and their research.

The presenters for CBE were:

• Dr. Barendra Purkait, Director, Publication Division, Geological Survey of India, Kolkata. He discussed "Deltaic Alluvial Plain of West Bengal - Some Environmental Issues"
  
• Dr. S.P. Sinha Ray, CBE Water Studies, with "Ground Water of Kolkata Metropolitan Area"
• Parthan R. Das -- which I didn't notate the title quickly enough, but he had a graphically rich presentation on built river edges. I personally thought that some of his ideas were very questionable from a landscape architect perspective, especially in terms of the reactions of a built edge to flooding, but I was definately impressed with the quality of his work. It was a pity that he did not have more time to discuss his slides, since he showed at least a 100 slides!
• Architect Sobhanlal Bonnerjee, CBE, with "Canals and Waterways in and around Kolkata Metropolitan District"
• Dr. Shivashish Bose, Dept. of Architecture, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, with "Urban Flooding, Case Study: Kolkata"

Then we Jonathon and Nick present, followed by a representative selection from our class to show the atlas we had been working on since the start of the semester. I should add that Lili (Elizabeth Dean Hermann) gave the first talk as way of introduction. We ended the seminar with an explanation of Design for Development.

New Light

Dearest Readers: many apologies for the lapse in posts. I had caught the "oh-dear-Kolkata's-air-is-so-polluted" sickness that is so pervasively rampant in city. The addition of sporadically working wireless delayed the posts as well.

As was previously mentioned in the Design for Development post, one of the projects is the Interwoven Storytelling project, led by Joann, Coleen, Atisha, and Devon. The project is attempting to provide a sustainable model for perserving the local cultural traditions of textiles, generating income for those communities and for education of these traditions.

There are four phases to the project, the first was completed in Providence and the second phase was tested in Kalighat over two nights. The first night (day four) had the kids of New Light [these are children of the red light workers] use the printing blocks created in Providence on paper.

The group then unveiled the tapestry created in Providence from those printing blocks, but created by RISD students before we left for Kolkata.Colleen and Devon, from the Interwoven group. Maren, Shannon, Matt, Mike, and others were the very patient volunteers. The kids were crazy!
Yours truly giving out crayons above. Some of the kids and their creations below.

Day Five - Urban Transect

I got fried today doing the urban transect. We were split off into groups of two to draw a transect (a really long section/section elevation) through our site. I was with Stephen and we started from the beginning of Kalighat Road, went down past the entrance to the "Sporting Club" and hooked a right into a lane that led past a shrine and into the Adi Ganga Canal.
It was hot and unpleasantly sunny. This older man came up to me and asked why I was drawing and I told him: to understand the scale of the neighborhood. Stephen interjected that we were architecture students but the man said it was illegal and that people might suspect us as being terrorists. From America. ... He went away and we were only bothered by the dozens of people looking over our shoulders -- most of them just stared, others looked and pointed at the buildings and others tried selling us something, which is usual. I think we both didn't want to stay there any longer than we needed to. Most of the day we spent on the transect, after which we went to New Light at 2pm. There was supposed to be an artist there to show a local painting style, but he/she never showed up (we later learn this). We didn't stay long but we met up with Atisha, Mike and Filomena.
Atisha witnessed the boat bridge in high tide. Apparently the boat bridge disappears when the tide is high; Atisha told us (and showed us a diagram) that the boats do a 180 to get across to the other side of the canal -- it sounds pretty efficient. I've posted the boat bridge as it is at low tide above. Atisha and Mike did a transect near the Burning Ghats and from what I've heard, Mike had quite an experience of a female priest singing to the both of them for well wishes (and then of course, asking for rupees).

Note: The two days of New Light (yesterday and today) will be described in its own post. I still need to collect photos from Mike and Coleen as I was only there today, and ended up being rather busy and unable to take my own photographs.

Day Four - If you drive like hell, you will reach there soon

But it still took us an hour to reach the north side of the city. We were visiting the temple complexes of Dakshinishwar and Belur Math. Photography was adamantly prohibited so you'll just have to get an idea from the Wikipedia links. Daksinishwar was built with a clay brick structure covered with plaster and then painted. Belur Math was built from stone.

We took taxis for much of the day. The photo above was our driver to and from the temple complexes. After Melissa greeted him with the standard Sikh greeting he got all happy and started teaching her all these phrases. He was a funny guy.

The Ambassador taxis that we were in had, of course, no air conditioning. The windows had to be open for air circulation. The problem with this was that all the trucks and buses in the city had their exhaust pipes close to the pavement. We were inudated with rolling black clouds of exhaust. It was rather severe and uncomfortable.
In the afternoon, we visited the Horticultural Society of India (w/ Mahua Ghosh, landscape architect and member of CBE; Anupama Mitra and Subhojit Lahiri, Agri Horticultural Society) on Alipore Road. Founded in 1820, it is the second oldest horticultural society in the world -- the first being the Royal Horticultural Society of London founded in 1816. We were told about how they had a water conference for landscape archiects last year and realized that water is a priceless resource -- that bird baths on roof gardens are extravagant. Some of the other things discussed were deforestation (losing medicinal plants) and educating clients on solutions to these problems.

After this meeting we had a tour of the gardens. The 'Mad Tree' was notable for the distinction that not one of its leaves are alike.
At about 5pm we split off into three groups -- one went to New Light, Nate and Jessica stayed to see more of the garden, and one went to walk the Adi Ganga Canal in Kalighat.
The New Light building.
The Canal is tidal, here it is seen flowing north. The stench from the garbage was repulsive. I would not say nauseating but it was still unpleasant. Sulfur, methane? and decomposing stuff were the principal scents.

The sluice gates seemed to function for storm water and drainage but presently have the function of taking everything including the "baby and the bath water" with it out into the canal.
This was curious -- the lines on the buildings and street seemed to designate a function. A game perhaps?

Day Three - Digestive Flows

This early morning found ourselves in the East Kolkata Wetlands, a constructed wetlands of an immense size to filter some of the polluted water of the urban area. It also provides sustainability to the fishermen in the area -- while the water is cleaned, fish are raised which provide substantial income.

There was a pleasant breeze this morning. The air was substantially cleaner than in urban Kolkata.A water filter, probably for prevention of siltation.

A bamboo bridge crossing one of the channels. It's quite bouncy.An elevated view of the wetlands.

After seeing the wetlands, we were herded off to see the fishermen's market, which as with other markets in Kolkata, was a chaotic carcophony of yelling, haggling, basket carrying, cart pulling and truck driving.

We then drove over to see the argicultural production area and what I believe we are seeing here are garbage trucks. We didn't get out of the bus on this one.
Our next destination was the Nature Park which was a constructed water filtration project that later became a nature park. I don't think the sheep here are a common feature. Shepherds with their flocks can be seen throughout the city.A view of the park and filtered water holding tank.

Crossing a filtration retaining wall.
We had the afternoon off. I went with Matt to find the metal artisans on Kansari Lane but, alas, although through some difficulty we found them, they were not open because it was a Sunday. So we made our way down to Kalighat by walking through Alipore. This is taken from the Alipore side of the Adi Ganga Canal looking at a river ghat north of the Judges Court Road bridge.
Another shot from Alipore. What is interesting of note in the photograph is the sluice gate which was streaming out water, but, from the construction, could support a mass volume import of water into the canal.The view south from the Judges Court Road bridge onto the Adi Ganga Canal. Not quite discernable in the photograph, but just at the vanishing point of the river is the boat bridge of Kalighat, which is adjacent/inclusive of our site.

A peculiar garden next to the Burning Ghats (the cremation shrine) whose principal function seems to be remaining prim and proper without any human interaction. I could imagine the "do not step on grass" signs here.
The cremation pyres. Matt and Jessica (we are in a much larger group now with 15 of us) decide to stay behind and we later learn that the cremation that they were preparing for was for a well revered Bhuddist monk.A detail of the entry columns to the Burning Ghats.