Why Our Attitude Towards Heritage Needs A Big Change?
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| Heritage in Danger! |
Heritage is the range of our inherited traditions, monuments, objects, and culture. Most important, it is the range of contemporary activities, meanings, and behaviours that we draw from them.Heritage includes, preserving, excavating, displaying, or restoring a collection of old things.It is both tangible and intangible, in the sense that ideas and memories of songs, recipes, language, dances, and many other elements of who we are and how we identify ourselves are as important as historical buildings and archaeological sites.
Over the span of last few years, due to urbanisation many old buildings are neglected and almost 90-95% of our built heritage is in urgent need of attention and repair.I’m sure this holds true for different old/ancient cities and sites across India.The attitude towards our heritage requires a huge change.This is why I feel preservation of heritage is important.
Our heritage is a link to the past
The buildings and monuments are an important indicator of our beliefs, practices, customs and way of life. It provides us with an easy way to study how we have evolved as a society.For example, the presence of around 1000 temples in old city of Jaipur, it is easy to understand why religion and religious customs are still strong in Jaipur.
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| GaltaJi Temple, Jaipur |
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| Kanak Vrindavan, Jaipur |
Heritage provide us with the platform to know our history.Cenotaph like the one in Jaipur – Royal Gaitore speaks a lot about attitude of the rulers towards art and religion.These structures are made from the blend of different building materials.Historians can decipher the state of finances during the reign of a particular ruler by simply analysing these structures. Similarly, the pyramids in Egypt provide a clue towards prevalent customs and religion of a period.
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| Gatore ki Chattriya, Jaipur |
Our Heritage makes us unique and inspires travel
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| Hawa Mahal, Jaipur |
Due to impact of globalisation in the world, buildings are similar everywhere. Be it Bangalore, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Hong Kong or London. Mostly it is all glass and concrete facade. But when one looks at the old buildings, they all have a story to tell and have unique design elements. For example, we will not find a structure as Hawa Mahal anywhere else in the world!
Distinct culture, customs and buildings inspires us to travel. Everyone wants to experience something new, people won’t travel thousands of miles to experience things they can find in their backyard. Hence, few places like Kremlin in Moscow, Louvre in Paris, Amer Fort in Jaipur, Taj Mahal, Agra are great attractions and people travel to take a look at them.Similarly Diwali festival in India, Songkran in Thailand, Bull fight in Spain are a big draw among travellers & tourists.
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| Diwali Celebration |
Therefore, heritage preservation cannot be done unless both government and public make an effort.One should always follow the quote said by, Linda Thibault that “the past is my heritage, the present is my responsibility, the future is my challenge to preserve Heritage.”
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