A timeless economy of broken objects : The ‘Bhanga Mela’ at Mathurapur
The Statesman | 28 January 2026
Installation artist Pradip Das is building his studio. The intricately carved green doors and the louvered windows that transform his contemporary building into a early 20th century marvel, have all been sourced from the broken objects’ fair at Mathurapur, 60 km away from his studio at Sarsuna. The price of one new window, made by a carpenter, was enough for all the other windows procured from the fair.
The ‘bhanga’, or broken objects’ fair, at Mathurapur in the district of South 24 Parganas, runs for nearly a month in January, with shopkeepers selling everything from old furniture, television and laptop, plumbing fittings, old notebooks and LPs, doors, windows, grills, mannequins, decorative items, exercise equipment, clothes and much more.
Rumoured to be more than a hundred years old, a fair that used to originally cater to people of the nearby towns and villages, now draws huge crowds from the metropolis, youtubers and content creators, as well as city folks hunting for a good bargain. Many Western countries now host repair cafes, offering the scope of low cost repairs as a sustainable mode of living to its citizens, but they are far and few in between.
In the age of hyperconsumption and mechanised production, it is often cheaper to buy a new product than to repair an old one. Instagram or tiktok reels documenting thrifting adventures in second hand shops, the Salvation Army or the Goodwill garner millions of views, framed as stopping overconsumption and saving the planet.
For most countries in South Asia and Africa, endemic poverty, however, makes reuse and repair a necessary virtue.
The stalls in the Mathurapur fair source their wares primarily from Kolkata, approximately 70 kms away by road. Many Kolkata neighbourhoods wake up to the call of men carrying large sacks, offering to buy everything from old newspaper to laptops, scrap metal to bottles.
Radhaprasad Gupta’s 1984 book on the street sounds of Kolkata document the regular visits by buyers of old objects, a hundred years ago. In the 19th century they would purchase bottles and paper, in the second half of twentieth century, plastic and electrical goods were added to their purchases, now old and broken electronic items are also procured. Kolkata also has women who buy old clothes in exchange of utensils, cleaning, repairing and selling them in the midnight market at Beadon Street. Long stretches at Chandni sell old electronic equipment, including air conditioners and television, while other parts of the city like Teretti Bazar and Manicktala have heaps of old doors, windows, wardrobes. Much of these, including those collected by the itinerant buyers described by Gupta, end up at Mathurapur—where all imaginable forms of old and discarded objects congregate together in a unique, one-of-a-kind fair.
The shops selling furniture also source their products from estate sales, and those selling doors and windows, when a house gets demolished.
Old furniture seller Khokon Baidya was displaying two teak book shelves and a whole bunch of metal ones, procured from a lawyer’s house after he stopped practicing. Another furniture seller, Shahid Hassan was proudly displaying a tanpura on top of a teak double bed, both belonging to a now dead artist, both for sale. Others, like Akashay Barui buys doors, windows and grills when houses get demolished in the neighbouring Durgapur, another buys old bathroom fittings, pipes and gussets, that are eagerly lapped up by plumbers serving clients in low-income brackets, and homeowners alike.
The fair also has a team of artisans who repair dented utensils, reasonably mend broken objects, polish old furniture before they are sent off to their own homes. Many of the shopkeepers are from nearby villages, but many others come from Kolkata, Magrahat, Baruipur, Durgapur, Lakhhikantapur—towns on the Sealdah South railway route.
Ahamd is a student of class X at Magrahat High School, calling out to his ‘abba’ for the price of ever single glassware that’s at his shop—while his abba cooks for his two sons who have accompanied him for this month-long sojourn into this open field. With temperature varying between 8 to 20 degrees every day, most of the sellers live in their makeshift shops, with a couple of ramshackle toilets to be shared between a few hundred people, and nothing for women to use.
Some of the objects in the shops fill the onlooker with sadness. A host of pictures commemorating a dignitary’s visit to a factory, hundreds of photos of grandparents and ancestors, books gifted by lovers, awards, medals, rotary dial phones, oil paintings, pewter mugs commemorating horse races, remnants of lives long forgotten.
Much of this will not be bought by anyone—they will be returned to the shops, and eventually, become trash. But most of the functional items will go to loving homes and offices, curios will become film or stage props, land up with antique dealers, an old treadmill will find a neighbourhood gym.
With every passing year, crowds swell, more attracted by social media reels than actual need. The road leading to the fair is dotted with temporary stall selling bright and brand-new plastic items, food, and blankets—there women of the neighbouring villages set up shops, earning something extra on this occasion of this extraordinary fair.