Restoring the wonder in red

As you walk past the shops at Chhatta Bazaar,Red Fort,sunlight streams in from its intricately designed sandstone arches,lighting up the pathway.

As you walk past the shops at Chhatta Bazaar,Red Fort,sunlight streams in from its intricately designed sandstone arches,lighting up the pathway. As you walk further,the bazaar opens up to a chowk,with a channel of water cutting across it. A few steps ahead is the two-storey structure of Naubat Khana,where drummers greet you with their ceremonial music. If you had lived in the 17th century,this is how you would have been welcomed into Shah Jahans court at Lal Qila,the seat of power from where he ruled over Shahjahanabad.

Today this fort retains little of its former architectural splendour. A recently conceived conservation plan aims at restoring this icon of Indias freedom to its former glory. This is not just any historical building. The story of Indias freedom struggle is embedded in every stone that makes this fort, says Gurmeet Rai,the conservation architect who headed the team of architects,civil engineers,public health engineers,electrical engineers and surveyors for drawing up the Comprehensive Conservation Management Plan (CCMP). Raiwho has worked extensively to restore architectural monuments in Punjab,like submitting a plan for the Darbar Sahib restoration and the Golden Templeworked on the CCMP for a year. For a year,I did not do anything else, says Rai,who worked on the plan from March 2006 to May 2007.

As part of the decade-long conservation project that has been divided into various stages,Rai is anxious about the first phase,which includes all the five buildings along the Central Axis corridorLahore Gate,Chhatta Bazaar,Naubat Khana,Rang Mahal and Mumtaaz Mahal. These buildings have undergone years of change and are in various stages of neglect. We suggested the changes based on archival maps of the fort since 1850 and overlapped it with contemporary maps of the area to evaluate the change, says Rai.

The Diwan-i-Aam,she explains,was one of the most important structures on the Central Axis. It was where the emperor addressed his people. I have pictures from the British period showing carpeted floors and awnings like in Jodhaa Akbar,under the sculpted arches. This building was a textiled structure and had a luxurious set-up, she says,adding,The lawns were never part of the original Mughal design. They were colonial introductions. The area in front of Diwan-i-Aam was a dry chowk where people gathered to listen to Shah Jahans speeches. While her team could not undertake any excavation at the fort premises,she believes that a scientific excavation will reveal rows of arched cubicles along the edges of the lawns of Diwan-i-Aam. If possible,the lawns in front of Diwan-i-Aam should be paved with flagstone, she says. The gardens behind the Diwan-i-Aam and the ones at Hayat-baksh will be built along the lines of the Mughal layout,which had jasmine,rose,fruit-based plants and other indigenous varieties.

The fort needs to reposition itself in modern India. It should be available to archaeologists who want to conduct research on the fort and Indias history. It should be a hub of modern cultural studies, Rai says. While it may take time before work gets underway,Raiwho is now working on the restoration of the Ellora caves and Gobindgarh Fort,Amristaris hopeful.

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram

Tags:
heritage