A couple of weeks ago, on 18 April, the annual ‘World Heritage Day’ came and went almost unnoticed in Kolkata. It is usually a moment when a city looks at herself, at old buildings, inherited rituals, and spaces that remember more than people do. But this year was different. West Bengal was in the middle of an intense election season. Rallies, speeches, slogans, and arguments filled the air. In that noise, heritage stood little chance. Even the regular ritualistic media articles were missing.

When political cacophony grows that loud, culture retreats. Then, a few days later, something curious happened. On 24 April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a boat ride on the Hooghly during his campaign. The opposition dismissed it as theatre. Perhaps it was. Perhaps it was not. But for a brief moment, the river returned to public attention, leaving behind a simple question: why must she wait for a political moment to be seen? The Hooghly is not merely a river passing by the city of Kolkata. As a tributary of the Ganga, she travels through the districts of West Bengal for roughly 260 kilometres before meeting the Bay of Bengal.

In Kolkata, she rests along the western edge of the city for about twenty kilometres, a patient witness who has outlived every generation that has leaned over her waters. The Hooghly has witnessed the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the Great Revolt of 1857, and the rupture of Partition in 1947. Long before Kolkata became a metropolis, the river had begun shaping her fate. When Job Charnock arrived in 1690 and settled in Sutanuti, it was the river that made that decision viable. Kolkata became what it became because of the river. From me dieval Sutanuti, Gobindapur, and Kalikata........

© The Statesman