An unusual carbon footprint
collection of early photographs. This silver albumen print is remarkably clear for its time, and also unusual is its subject matter. Photographs were expensive, both to take and to print, so most pictures were of grand monuments or events. This one captures the energy and vibrancy of a crowd in the midst of enjoying the city’s most beloved festival. “If you look carefully, you can also see boats and steamers in the busy Ganga,” says Sengupta.
6. Lord Cornwallis, c 1790
Statue in marble by John Bacon
Statues of notable Britons were designed to impress, nay intimidate, in the colonies. This 8-ft statue of the Governor General of Bengal was created in the neoclassical style and shows the portly Cornwallis in a Roman toga, his left hand grasping a sheathed sword, his right extending an olive branch. The female figures seated below him represent fortitude and prudence. The symbolism is interesting, says Sengupta, because “the British thought of themselves as having inherited the mantle of global empire from the Romans.”
7. Illustrated page from Nal Daman, c 1580
Nal Daman is the Persian translation of the Indian myth Nala Damayanti, told within the Mahabharata. This manuscript is a representation of how interested Muslim rulers in medieval and early modern India were in Hindu epics and legends. “Everyone is interested in a good story, regardless of religion,” Sengupta says. This work was commissioned by the Mughal emperor Akbar, who had a whole department of translation
8. Cannonball used in the Battle of Plassey, 1757
This piece of weaponry was found during excavation of the Murshidabad branch of the Eastern Bengal State Railway, circa 1880. The battle of Plassey was a turning point for the British in India. East India Company forces defeated the wealthy and powerful Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daula. “The conquest of Bengal, a rich territory, paved way for British to acquire the rest of India,” Sengupta says.
9. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s desk, c 1870
A simple wooden desk preserved at the museum is perhaps where the famous writer wrote his novel Anandamath in 1882. It is in that work that the poem Vande Mataram first appeared. It would later be picked up by the Congress party and sung across the country as part of the freedom movement. It continues to be sung today and is the national song.
10. Queen Victoria’s piano, c 1829
This is a grand piano originally ordered for the 10-year-old Victoria by her uncle, King William IV, in 1829. “It hasn’t been tuned for a long time, but its keys are still intact and it can be played,” Sengupta says. Incidentally, William IV died with no living legitimate heirs, leaving Victoria to be crowned queen upon his death, in 1837. She was 18.
Talk about stamping down pollution. The Goa-based start-up Carbon Craft Design is making floor tiles that feature swirls of carbon trapped in concrete. The carbon black comes from a process used to break down used tyres. Normally it would have been released into the air, adding to the pollution. Carbon Craft Design (CCD) works with the tyre processing plants to capture recovered carbon black, and then works with craftsmen in Gujarat to incorporate it into tile patterns.
Tejas Sidnal, 32, founder of CCD, is an architect and biomimetic designer and researcher, which means he studies ways to recreate nature’s solutions to looming problems such as pollution (or, in other cases, water management, food scarcities, etc).
“About 200 million tyres are discarded every year in India. Each tyre is 30% to 40% carbon black,” Sidnal says. “With the right degree of heat, a tyre can be reduced to steel, recovered carbon black, and a kind of fuel called pyrolysis oil. This carbon black and oil are typically disposed of by burning, releasing polluting carbon emissions into the atmosphere.”
CCD uses the recovered carbon black to create its monochrome tiles, available with patterns in black, white and four shades of grey. They were first made in collaboration with the Us-based Air Ink in 2019. But that process used carbon emissions and could not provide the volumes CCD needed to scale up, so the two companies went their separate ways. It then took about a year for CCD to research how else they could extract larger amounts of recovered carbon, and eventually they hit upon the used-tyre processing plants.
Users of CCD’S tiles so far include Manan Gala, an architect with Mumbai-based Bombay Contractors. Gala sourced the tiles in December as part of his plans to renovate his home. “I was intrigued,” Gala says. “Construction material has a big carbon footprint. So the fact that these tiles are robust, suit an Indian environment, are aesthetically pleasing and are made using recovered carbon black made me want to experience them first-hand.”
Sidnal, meanwhile, is now trying to raise funds for the research and development of what he calls a Reverse Chimney Pavilion, a funnel-like contraption that he hopes will absorb polluted air, purify it and release it back in the atmosphere.
“We need at least Rs 1 crore for R&D and to build the chimney,” Sidnal says. “It’s challenging to raise this kind of funding, especially given that businesses have suffered due to Covid. But we believe architectural intervention is needed to address air pollution, and we don’t intend to give up on that.”