Keeping communities alive

Well before the buzz around Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinpingrsquos meeting became one of the highlights at the BRICS Summit in Delhi on September 1213 a development in Kolkata that connected the same countries grabbed our attentionOn September 5 Black Burn Lane in old Chinatown Tiretti Bazar experienced a sea of activity with the opening of the Cheenapara Heritage Gallery Indiarsquos first space to document the history and culture of its resident Chinese community For the uninitiated Cheenapara is the local name for the area Bengali lsquoCheenarsquo Chinese lsquopararsquo neighbourhoodLocated in the Chinese Community Club off Central Avenue the project is a collaboration between Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage INTACH and The CHA Cities Heritage Architecture Project a Singaporebased urban design studio established by a Kolkata resident Rinkoo Bhowmik This gallery includes a permanent display of curiosities antiquities photographs souvenirs archival material and documents sourced by Kolkatarsquos Chinese This grand initiative will help join the dots of the communityrsquos links with Kolkata that dates back to over two centuriesMembers of the community interact with each on a Saturday evening in Old Chinatown PicsFiona FernandezThis columnist was lucky to have experienced the sights sounds and character of this untouched quarter of Chinatown last year I also interacted with a few homegrown residents The Chinese who originally came to India for trade and better working opportunities while fleeing from conflict and natural disasters have assimilated into the Bengali ecosystem Apart from restaurants they set up salons leather businesses and other commercial trading activities They speak fluent Bengali eat dalchawal and keep tabs on cricket like most of us It was revelatory to study a community with roots in another county and their organic shift towards their home cityThe news of the heritage gallery is a great avenue to not just preserve their ancestry but also to showcase it to the rest of the city and the world This is where I got thinking about Mumbai and the lsquomelting potrsquo tag that we take for granted Apart from the galleries dedicated to some of the cityrsquos original and migrant communities in our cityrsquos museums there are no permanent spaces to celebrate their rich contribution to Mumbairsquos indigenous or migrant communities The FD Alpaiwalla Museum is an exception and crafts a great storytelling narrative around the Zoroastrian community and its links with IndiaBe it a deepdive into the Kolis and Bhandarisrsquo rooted existence since the city was all but seven marshy islands or the fascinating journeys of the Bene Israelis or Baghdadi Jews the Wadia shipbuildersrsquo impact on erstwhile Bombayrsquos shipping industry the influence of the Goans Mangaloreans and Shettys who travelled for better opportunities the trading communities of the Bhatias Shroffs and Banias who were key members in the cityrsquos early financial networkhellip The list is endless and makes for an envious idea Each of these communities and many others have shared their cultural influences and have also imbibed a certain lsquoBombaynessrsquo along the way It is this beautiful jugalbandi that needs to be documented to a level of permanenceImagine gazing at 18th century cooking utensils that originated in a Goan kitchen or at forgotten Kunbi weaves Or the joy of marvelling at details of replicas of boats used by Baghdadi Jews to arrive on the Konkan or famous ships built by the Wadia shipbuilders What if we could glimpse at restored hundis dating to the early 19th century traditional indigenous bills of exchange that were used by the ShroffsAll of these possibilities are ripe with opportunity and can offer an unbelievable repository as well as a great service to the communities that built Mumbairsquos storied legacy Our guess is that logistically it might be a nightmare to bring all of them under one roof Instead standalone communitydriven mini museums and galleries can go a long way in engaging and educating the visitor The more the merrier Sustained efforts and financial support from our heritage and cultural stakeholders and wellwishers is needed to set the ball rolling Else in a fastchanging metropolis where markers of community living remain increasingly fragile we will be staring at the loss of these movers and shakers that gave us that lsquomelting potrsquo tag in the first place And made us quintessentially Mumbaimiddayrsquos Features Editor Fiona Fernandez relishes the cityrsquos sights sounds smells and stoneswherever the ink and the inclination takes her She tweets bombayanaSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper