Kala Ghoda fest gallops to rescue heritage For 89 years, King Edward VII’s bronze horse polished to black finish gave its colloquial name to a crescent-shaped layout bordering the business district that brokered Bombay’s fabled wealth. In 1965, nationalism belatedly banished monarch and steed to the Byculla zoo. The name remained –regaining its raison d’etre in 2017 when the precinct again got a spirited, albeit riderless black horse.
The statue was funded by Kala Ghoda Association (KGA), supported by public-minded sponsors of Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, currently in the middle of its 25 th edition. But this column isn’t in praise of the cultural mélange or chockablock mela assembled by its low-key, artist-activist, Hon Director, Brinda Miller. More noteworthy is how KGAF and KGA fulfil the original dream of the city’s creative czars: formalizing an art district from this unique concentration of iconic art galleries, colonial architecture, hoary academe, and historic museum given the kiss of life by its director, a decidedly different Sabyasachi Mukherjee.
A shifting scape of artisanal, fashion and food outlets has segued into this strollable-in-20-minutes radius. ‘Restoration’ was necessarily on the original agenda, but KGA has bumped it up to ‘revival’. Splendidly bringing past into present, the association has taken heritage off its dusty shelf, mended it, and made it lovingly usable.
Sangita Jindal’s civic generosity, conservation architects Abha Nar.
