The spires, kites and towers of Lucknow

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Title : The spires, kites and towers of Lucknow
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The spires, kites and towers of Lucknow

[Guest post by Tapas Mitra in Lucknow, India] I had never been to Lucknow, but read and heard so much about the city that numerous words spoken by Lucknowis (people of Lucknow are referred to this way) and mannerisms attributed to them are known to me as if I belonged to the city. Lucknow has a principal place in Indian urban mythography; its cuisine, buildings, mannerisms are known to all but not experienced by many. Hence, during the Holi break in early March (Holi is the festival of colour and played passionately in north India), we decided to do our much-awaited Lucknow trip.

I booked a hotel in the old city area that would make it easy to navigate through the maze typical of the core of an Indian old city. The first thing that struck me from the hotel room on the sixth floor (above) were three distinct elements in the city skyscape: the spires and the kites (both expected) and the mobile phone towers. The mobile network is accessed by most people now and given the density of Lucknow’s inner core it is not surprising that the towers dominate the skyline. The heady mix of people and their peculiar engagements, decaying/mutilated/maintained artifacts and the burgeoning communication towers better represent the layers of the city today than a hackneyed sketch-essay of the much visited Lucknow, the city of Nawabs.


This is the second sketch from my hotel room: the roof of the Methodist church adjacent to the hotel forms the foreground. The modernist building across the street, the mosque domes and spires at a distance, the phone towers, the Smart City poles and the kites fight for attention in the mix of images.


This sketch is done from the 10th-floor terrace. The unplastered second block of the old city can be seen here. Unlike other cities in India, kites are flown in Lucknow throughout the year, and predominantly by the Muslim community.


This is a street view in the old Aminabad area of Lucknow. The gable-roofed building here is the remnant of a rich past. Perfumeries on the ground floor still operate. The Lucknow ittar (perfume) dates back to the time of the Nawabs, the provincial Muslim rulers. (The last of them, Wajid Ali Shah, is remembered for his taste in classical music and dance, and all finer things of life. He spent his last years as a hostage in Calcutta after the British monarchy replaced the East India Company to rule its colony.)


This is a site in front of a famous shrine in Lucknow, the Bada Imambara. City people, tourists, horse-drawn carts and royal architecture dominate the scene. Inside, there is a labyrinth, known as Bhulbhulaiya, where the Nawab, as goes the story, would play hide-and-seek with his begums. The Smart City pole is visible clearly in the background.


The last sketch shows the names of patterned kites flown in Lucknow. I was pleasantly surprised to see the traditional patterns (not the ones with profiles of film stars). The translations (in English) are of the names we have given them in Calcutta, in Bengali. They would have local names in Hindi or Urdu, but since the leisure of flying kites was taken to Calcutta by the last Nawab of Lucknow, I thought it would be a tribute to the legacy we Calcuttans still carry. Like many old habits, the art and practice of flying kites is dying in most Indian cities. This Holi, I relived in Lucknow my childhood of flying kites from the rooftop of our old house in Calcutta.

Tapas Mitra is a self-taught artist who teaches architecture and urban design at the School of Planning and Architecture in Bhopal, India. He lectured at the Urban Sketchers symposium in Chicago. His previous guest posts have focused on Indian departure lounges and street vendors. Originally from Calcutta, he lives and works in Bhopal with his wife and daughter.



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