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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/india-amit-pasricha-photography-preserve-architecture/>
"In the town of Jaisalmer in the western Indian state of Rajasthan, Patwon Ki
Haveli shimmers in the haze of the Thar Desert, not far from its famed golden
fort. With intricately carved balconies, courtyards where shadows dance as
light filters through latticed windows, and rooms that echo with history, this
traditional sandstone house, or
haveli, was built by a wealthy local trader
in 1805.
“Growing up not far from this
haveli, I was in awe of it, and it was one of
the reasons I decided to become an architect,” 29-year-old Riya Bissa says.
But over the years, Bissa felt it had “lost its relevance for the people living
around it.” To address this, she organized a series of community events as part
of World Heritage Day last April — walks, art contests and an exhibition in one
of the
haveli’s exquisite courtyards. “I felt the old building come to life
when it was used and enjoyed by the community,” she says. “It was wonderful.”
This wasn’t the first time Bissa had dedicated time to helping honor India’s
historic buildings. For the last few years, she has volunteered with India Lost
and Found (ILF), a crowdsourced photo project that celebrates India’s heritage.
Looking beyond the country’s famous monuments like the Taj Mahal and the Red
Fort, the initiative documents the country’s vast reserve of lesser-known but
still charismatic old monuments. This is important, its founder Amit Pasricha
says, not only to create a digital archive that will inform and drive
conservation, but also because the crowdsourcing of this information is
“creating a new generation of people passionate about history.”
Pasricha is a professional photographer best known for his panoramic shots of
Indian monuments. The idea of ILF came to him while he was working on his book
India at Home. Travelling through India’s backroads, he found himself drawn
not just to grand palaces and majestic tombs, but to what lay in their shadows:
Weathered temples, ancient stepwells, crumbling
havelis and more.
“The Archeological Survey of India has more than 2,500 historical monuments on
its list, but barely a couple of hundred are visited,” Pasricha says. “They
remain unvisited, undocumented, unseen […] and that’s a huge part of our
heritage that we’re missing out on.”
Initially, Pasricha set out to photograph them himself. But it soon became
clear that no single person could possibly capture them all. That’s when the
idea of crowdsourcing emerged: What if citizens could help build a map of
India’s forgotten past — and, in creating it, make the past a little more
relevant to the present."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
