Hundreds join heritage walk at Pune University

Hundreds of citizens and students joined a heritage walk of the premises of the Savitribai Phule Pune University main building on Saturday. The walk takes the participants from the erstwhile Kitchen Quarters through a tunnel into the main building of the university which was built as the monsoon residence of the governor of the Bombay Province. Then the walk leads to the stone marked with 1864, the year when the Bombay provincial government amassed enough money to spend on grand buildings.

The tunnel ends underneath the main building where the Butler’s Pantry was located. The visitors are then shown the banquet hall and the dance floor adjoining the fireplace and the Marble Hall. A museum of artefacts related to the Western Maharashtra region includes the original coins and paintings of the Peshwa and Maratha rulers dating back to the 1790 comes next.

This shows the participants that the wealth amassed from the cultivators of colonial Deccan was spent on building grand buildings that were meant to serve as signs of the permanence of the British Empire. However, the empire ended and the heritage structure now stands testimony to the opportunities that the university offers for a million students and their families to carve their own future with dignity. The SPPU department of history organises a heritage walk twice a month, which is open and free for all visitors.