Chennaiites celebrate city’s rich heritage

Come Sunday and a group of cycling enthusiasts will ride to Fort St. George, take up shovels and clean up its precincts. The motley group will consist of school kids, college students as well as middle-aged professionals. During World Heritage Week, which commenced on November 19, Cycling Yogis, a non-profit organisation has organised a clean-up of the heritage building.

“Cleaning is synonymous to generating awareness about the importance of heritage buildings for us and our future generations. Since these monuments are a gateway to our culture, it is only essential that we involve a larger section of society in making it pristine. We have tied up with schools and the Chennai Chapter of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) for the event,” says Ramanujar Moulana, founder of Cycling Yogis. The organisation, which was founded in 2012, has made the clean-up an annual affair.

The maintenance of heritage buildings is not just the responsibility of a particular organisation or a department alone, feels K. Moortheeswari, Deputy Superintending Archaeologist of ASI, Chennai Chapter. “The idea of involving a larger section of society in clean-ups, workshops and various other events is to put across the message that heritage buildings need to be maintained so that we can pass them in their full splendour to our future generations,” he explains. The Chennai chapters of ASI and Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) have been working towards generating awareness on the heritage buildings of the city through a host of activities, especially centred around the World Heritage Week. “We have tied up with the heritage clubs of various schools and are planning to organise a clean-up of the historical monuments through the week. This will be followed by a poster-making competition, wherein they have to talk about the clean-up and the importance of preserving our heritage buildings. It is aimed at creating awareness at an early stage,” says Sujatha Shankar, Convener, INTACH Chennai Chapter.

DakshinaChitra is known for preserving, promoting and presenting the rich cultural heritage of South India through curated permanent exhibits and public programmes. On World Heritage Week, they would be organising a special talk on importance of heritage conservation. “Photographer and cultural activist, Stephen Eckerd will be showcasing an exhibition of photographs as well as will be talking on the importance of heritage conservation with reference to the recent Nepal earthquake. It will be an eye opener on understanding the condition of the victims and will also be helpful to understand the importance of heritage buildings and ways to conserve them,” informs Sharath Nambiar, Chief operating Officer, DakshinaChitra

Storytrails has been organising walking tours along with detailed insight into stories behind sights and sounds of the city. They will be organising two special walks on Friday and Saturday. “We will be hosting a Peacock Trail, where we walk through Mylapore, exploring fascinating stories. There is also a special Bazaar trail, where we go through the bylanes of old marketplace like Georgetown,” explains Lakshmi Shankar, Manager-operations, Storytrails.