Sustainability and the City - Center for Urban Green Spaces

The Maidan of KolkataThe Vista of JoyThe Victoria Memorialto remain without successors, and thehandsome avenues across the Maidan stillconstitutes the primary identity mark ofKolkata, probably in collaboration withthe Victoria Memorial. Dotting the wideexpanse is a number of fine tanks, fromwhich the inhabitants were content informer days to obtain their water-supply.”Before it acquired its current formand dimensions, Maidan wasactually as a vast tiger-infested jungletill the British started building FortWilliam in 1758, a year after thedecisive Battle of Plassey, in whatwas then the village of Gobindapur.After the Fort was completed in1773, the British started clearingthe jungle around it, thus was bornMaidan to become the central vistaof the city that came up around thismagnificent greenspace.Maidan is intrinsically linked tosports - Indian cricket started itsjourney from here with a two-daymatch between officers of the BritishEast India Company in January 1804.World’s oldest hockey tournament(the Beighton Cup) was institutedhere in 1895 and it remained thenerve centre of Indian football till afew decades ago. Today, it housesmany sports clubsand stadiumincluding the Eden Gardens and thestadiums of a famous football clubslike Mohun Bagan, East Bengal andMohammaden Sporting. One can notalso forget that Maidan is also hometo the oldest golf club outside GreatBritain - the Royal Calcutta GolfClub.Maidan was the venue of animportant event of the BengalRenaissance - Jyotindranath Tagore(Rabindranath’s elder brother) taughthis wife Kadambari horse-ridinghere in the 1880s, which marked apermanent change in the way Bengalisociety looked at role and statureof women vis a vis men. Many arevolutionary idea took shape onthese grounds. But in recent decades,the Maidan has hosted, and has beenmauled by, huge political rallies thatare increasingly frequent and in someway have made Kolkata infamous.Maidan indeed is is many things tomany people. To the washer manwho washes laundry at one of thefew ponds or to the shepherd whotends his flock, it is a convenientworkplace. To joggers and walkers itis a favorite spot. It is a prime hauntfor young lovers, a haven for sportsenthusiasts, a must-visit for touristsand, during the winters, a retreat forpicnickers. But more than all thisis the fact that the Maidan, whichmakes for 50 per cent of Calcutta’stotal open space, acts as the city’svital lungs.As the juggernaut of urbanizationbegins its unstoppable roll, Indiais going to have more and more“Kolkatas”. But to ensure asustainable and livable future forthese new Kolkatas that India seeksto build it has to ensure that everynew Kolkata comes into being withits own Maidans. The country will beignoring this prescription at its ownperil. Afterall a great city is knownnot for its size, but by its livability.And it is the maidans that makekolkatas worth fighting for. •22 urbanature