Students capture stories & sounds of north Calcutta: College contest aims to keep heritage alive
Telegraph | 30 October 2025These sounds, integral to the city, were unfamiliar to many of the students at the Loreto College auditorium on Wednesday.
The event, Framing Forgotten Footsteps, a Loreto College initiative, aimed to “bridge historical inquiry with creative documentation,” allowing students to explore and preserve north Calcutta’s heritage.
“The sounds are typical of a place, but many have evolved or disappeared over time. The cries of a feriwala (street vendor) or the honk of a ball horn are rarely heard now,” said Chirantan Banik, a third-year history student of Presidency University.
“The roar of vehicles dominates the day, which we struggled to filter out while filming,” he added. His team of five won first prize in the documentary segment, which focused on capturing oral histories.
The first runner-up, Saisha Srivastava, a second-year student of Loreto College, documented the lanes and bylanes of Kumartuli.
“An artisan told me, ‘There are more people in Kumartuli now than idols.’ Social media and reels have multiplied footfall in the area,” she said.
Organised in collaboration with the History and Media Society, the event saw participation from 13 institutes.
It featured two segments: photography, which encouraged students to visually document heritage sites, and documentary-making, which focused on oral histories and the living sounds of the city.
Ankita Duttagupta, a student of Heritage Academy, won the photography segment with her work at Bow Barracks. “It is a place with a distinct character. Everyone I met there spoke English. This competition allowed me to see Calcutta in a way I had never experienced,” she said.
“There is a story in every corner of Calcutta,” said Rupanwita Das, a second-year student and organising committee member. “We want young people to explore these corners and keep the city’s heritage alive.”
