A Pedagogy of Ruins
Learning Kolkata Through Bharat Fan
Second Position- English, Nāgrika Youth Writing Contest 2026
By Arushi Sharma
City: Kolkata, West Bengal
Told through the voice of the abandoned Bharat Fan Factory in Behala, Kolkata, this reflective piece explores memory, urban change, and quiet resilience. Once a thrumming industrial engine that set the daily rhythm for a post-partition community, the factory now stands as a weathered, vine-draped ruin along Raja Rammohan Roy Road.
As the world around it moves past its industrial era into modern detachment, the structure observes the daily sights, monsoons, and Durga Puja celebrations of the neighborhood. Evolving into a sanctuary for local children, strays, and weary wanderers, the decaying factory offers a tender portrait of Kolkata itself: bruised by time, yet deeply empathetic and enduringly alive.
A multitude of bustling wayfarers weave though Raja Ram Mohan Roy Road every day, swept up in a tide of endless commotion. Yet my presence remains entirely overlooked. Smothered by layers of faded and grim political posters, the crawling embrace of the straggling banyan roots and the dogged sprawl of the morning bazaar that inclines firmly against my bosom, I am nothing more than a weathered façade bearing the verdant scars of age and decay. I am what remains of the Bharat Fan Factory at 61 Raja Rammohan Roy Road where rust clings to memories and the silence echoes louder than the machines that once hummed within my confines.
Still, in the sprawling urban fabric of Kolkata, I am an enduring anchor. To the conductors dangling precariously out of the buses S31 and Sarada Park mini and the drivers of newly electric auto-rickshaws shuttling frantically between Muchipara and Behala Chowrasta, I am a persistent breathless shout: “Bharat Fan! Bharat Fan! Dada, namben na? Bharat Fan eshe geche!” (Bharat Fan! Bharat Fan! Hey brother, won’t you get down? Bharat Fan is here!). A slew of commuters alight at the feet of my rusted gates every single day. Their shoes scuff the pavement which my shadow embraces, but none turn towards me. I now remain unmoved by it. Over the decades, I have learnt to accept that my purpose has outlived the industry that it once defined. Nevertheless, I have found in this quiet pocket of Behala one of its most instructive classrooms.
I regularly taste the exhaust of a city perpetually in motion. The humdrum of Raja Rammohan Roy Road is an unceasing barrage of sensations which I absorb unprotestingly with every cracked brick and eroded hinge. Every breath in this locality carries the scent of leaking drainage, the briny tang of sweat and pulverized asphalt. The unforgiving roar of traffic is punctured by the rhythmic chop-chop of the boti, as the fish vendors scale fresh Rui and Katla or carefully arrange the beloved Ilish right against my boundary wall, attracting the attention of their faithful clientele: the fish-loving Bengalis and the ever-present gaggle of stray cats and chattering crows. The cold soapy water from the vegetable vendors’ buckets seeps into my foundation as they haggle over the price of seasonal greens with feverish intensity. I can smell the wet coriander leaves, the loose dirt, and the fresh blood from the glassy-eyed fish, which leave muddy footprints near the crudely made stalls, and the stench of the raw fish presses into my old skin. Such a cacophony brings an inexplicable comfort to my aching soul, weaving the very heart of this small locale to the very rhythm of my existence.
I have watched this para transform with change becoming its lessons and its residents answering with unwavering devotion, nurturing every imparted insight into fruition. Long before the morning fish and vegetable markets claimed my boundaries, my own machinery was the pulse of this neighbourhood. Following the partition of Bengal, surviving refugees arrived in these peripheral wetlands with nothing but defiant optimism. They built Joypur Pally to commemorate their new home as the City of Victory, and Sukanta Pally after the famous revolutionary Sukanta Bhattarcharya, the young rebel poet of the working classes.
And as was fitting, I didn’t just occupy space in this new world; I dictated time. My sirens were the metronome of this locality. It reverberated across the neighbourhood, synchronising the workers’ watches, school departures, and kindling of the kitchen stoves.
Back then, the breeze wove through the byways carrying traces of hot varnish, machine grease, and the crisp ozone of electrical testing, belched out my bowels through the flurry of activity initiated by restless men. And amidst them, I was stood as their stringent headmaster. I taught these displaced children of the city that a community could be forged in the fire of shared industrial labour. The men who eased through my gates had voices that were rough with the arduous toil, their hands eager in shared camaraderie, and their gait declaring steadiness and tenacity. Slowly but surely, I inculcated into them the dignity of routine, the strength of solidarity and the alchemy of turning steel and copper into the very thing which moves the air in Kolkata and brings immense relief to the weary crowd.
My existence in its entirety mirrored the city’s living cadence – steady, restless, and alive beneath the hum of everyday motion. An epoch when Kolkata was a manufacturing titan, and the lifeforce coursing through it was propelled by its massive factories.
Nonetheless, Kolkata is an uncompromising teacher, and she offers no easy lessons. She nurtures fiercely but also suffocates in the same breath. Soon, deindustrialisation swept through the city like a quiet plague, and I found myself caught in its wake. The thrumming of my assembly lines ceased as the workers who had once sought livelihood from me, in their dissatisfaction, barricaded my doors and eventually shackled me with heavy iron padlocks. A newer world beckoned them with brighter promises where I had little purpose to serve and even little to offer by way of value.
A new-found development engulfed the city in a single breath and has not allowed her much respite ever since. Families who once built their lives around me subsequently left, no longer held by the promise that kept them here. And with each departure, fewer young hearts dared to dream about this city. Their elders gather at the small tea stall against my southern wall at early morning and dusk every day without fail, to lament the lives they once shared, their joys and their griefs. Such quiet yearning finds its way to me in hands cradled tenderly around a steaming cup of ginger tea, and in the rich earthy vapour of its freshly crushed spices. The ache for the disappearing past, however, does not linger long, for the hushed calculations of property value and market demand eclipse it soon.
A similar detachment plays out in the faces of the young men who park their scooters under the overhanging branches peeking atop my crumbling walls. Dressed in bright t-shirts, they stare impassively at the glowing screens in their hands, waiting for the promise of movement and purpose which would send them weaving through the city’s endless traffic. Since I was accustomed to workers who stood shoulder-to-shoulder, shouting and swearing above the clamour of my running coils, the prospect of enduring such profound isolation unsettled me. Perhaps my aversion arose not from the solitary existence itself but from the familiar desolation, the echo of which I find within me. Any witness can survive neglect, decay, and obsolescence, but fragmentation speaks of a far deeper loss. Being scattered in pieces bespeaks stories that can no longer be shared in completion as the present is denied the opportunity to acknowledge the wholeness of its memories. It often occurs to me that such estrangement is not merely caged within me but that they linger too, unknowingly, within the hearts of the children of this city.
If you venture beyond the city’s bustling thoroughfare and peer through the latticed guard rail towards the narrow labyrinthine lanes of Sukanta Nagar, the path of learning changes. Here, time meanders and delights in taking its own sweet course. The frenetic pulse of the city mellows into a slow and steady heartbeat, where familiarity and intimacy refuse to waver in the face of urgency.
Through the fissures in my crumbling walls, I glimpse the winding maze of alleyways unfurling behind me, their beginnings and endings so abrupt that they feel less like streets and more akin to fleeting thoughts etched into the city. And nestled around unexpected bends, small temples reveal themselves without ceremony, some no larger than a small alcove tucked beneath the expansive hanging roots of an old peepal tree, while others are unassuming refuges where the gods Shitala or Shiva have kept their silent vigil over the generations who pass, much like the seasons beyond their thresholds, guarding their hopes and sorrows. Every day, the soft chime of a brass bell reaches my empty halls, which is followed by the low murmur of prayers announcing the quiet arrival of another day, rousing the small neighbourhood from its slumber. The sound slips through my broken windows, settling briefly among my rusted beams, belying the emptiness which has come to serve as my faithful confidant. The mornings thus, breathe awake in the haze of the lingering scent of incense, mingling with the sweetness of the damp marigolds bestowed reverently on the feet of the deities. Soon however, as the sun burns more brightly overhead, the air becomes infused with the nutty aroma of mustard seeds being crushed alongside poppy seeds on an aged shil-nora, tempered spices crackling in hot oil, and fresh curry leaves being torn by careful hands. Even from where I stand sentinel, I can taste the tangy sharpness of ground mustard softened by the mellow richness of the poppy seeds; the everyday comforts of the kitchen which have remained steadfast even as my own pursuits have run their course.
As the sun reaches its summit, the lanes surrender to a languid repose. Stray dogs wander to the cool shade offered by my slanting silhouette and stretch themselves in my company; locals leave their treasured bicycles to me for safekeeping against my moss-eaten walls, and from the vantage point of my northern wall, I can make out the solitary pond lying motionless, clasping shards of drifting clouds in its still waters. From the half-open windows of the house opposite me, the familiar crescendos of Bengali serials accost me with every passing hour after the horizon wears the mottled blues and violets of a healing bruise. Their theatrical arguments, sudden gasps and swelling music ricochet through the alleys, the spilt excess intertwining with the soft rustling of dancing leaves and the cackling of crows; carrying me through my lonely evenings.
And then, there is the weather. The sky above Kolkata possesses an unmatched flair for the dramatics, and I have no choice but to be an unwilling audience to its mercurial tantrums every day without fail. I have come to believe that the seasons have an unforgiving sway on the city’s temperament, and it is reflected in the way she treats me. By late May, the heat is a living, suffocating entity which has no qualms in coiling its scorching arms around me, much to my discomfort. My bricks bake under the hot, dry spell; the asphalt of the road surrenders just as easily to the incumbent heat, and the air quivers with mirages. Thereby, every journey through the city becomes a recurring trial of patience, evident in the slower steps and shorter tempers. But it is the monsoon that proves to be the true challenge to the city’s spirit.
When the July skies finally break and unleash torrential rains, the very nature of the relationship that I share with this city is fundamentally redefined. First comes the sudden, violent drop in temperature, which is then accompanied by the dense, dark clouds advancing from the Bay of Bengal, swallowing the sky as a splash of ink unfurls across a sheet of paper. The intoxicating petrichor of the drenched earth quenching its long-suffering thirst is quickly overwhelmed by the less amorous odour of the overflowing drains and wet garbage.
The drainage of Raja Rammohan Roy Road chokes, as it has done for decades. The muddy opaque water creeps up my brick base and soaks through my buried foundation. The cold then seeps steadily inwards, settling into my iron bones, cold and heavy, ensuring that no warmth can ever take hold. Waterlogging in Kolkata is an annual ordeal and, it has long served as a ready lesson in the uncompromising exercise of radical empathy.
I remember when rickshaw pullers navigated the submerged potholes strictly by memory; when businesspeople, day labourers and office holders waded knee-deep together, their social differences washed away momentarily in the face of such misfortune. Out of this shared misery emerged a stubborn kind of solidarity.
As the city came to a reluctant halt, the forced stillness paved the way for neighbours to find companionship in shared uncertainties.
Today, the water breeds mostly irritation. While the city itself remains caught in the same recurring struggle, the patience of its people has begun to erode. They are racing towards a future that no longer accommodates delay. Huddled together under my sagging awning, frustrated office-goers and exasperated students yell into their phones about cancelled cabs and late deliveries. Waterlogging has ceased to be a shared event; it is an individual inconvenience. Yet, they huddle under my awning. In their moment of delay, they are forced to seek shelter under my roof and to share in my presence the similar commiseration. I stand tall amidst the floodwaters, an unchanging marker in a constantly shifting world; reminding them that some things, no matter how quickly the world moves, require the patience to pause, endure, and wait.
Yet, there was a time even I had similarly resisted. I fought the banyan tree that now spreads across and has consumed almost the entirety of my southern wall. Its roots steal forward and gradually pry my bricks apart in a slow, deliberate strangulation. I felt the agony of my own undoing. But time teaches even brick and iron how to yield. As the years unfold, the tree feels less like an intruder and more as an extension of my own being. Its thick, twisting roots have become my new veins, protecting my crumbling façade from collapse after the mortar has failed me. This decay is not a pain as it once was, but an enduring testament to my protracted survival. What had once been a wound has now become a source of unexpected pride. Together, we venture towards a shared ruin, sustaining each other nonetheless.
In these waning years, the heavy iron padlocks which ensured my silence during the lockouts now stand protector to a different kind of sanctuary. I have transformed from a place driven by industry to a place which now offers refuge to the most unexpected of company. My utility has not ended, but has simply evolved. While the adults bargain fiercely on the pavement outside, their children often wander to my locked, rusted gates. They grip the cold, iron bars with their sweet, sticky fingers, pressing their small faces against the gaps to peer into the vast, cavernous dark of my hollowed-out belly. I am not a forgotten relic to them; I am a well-cherished myth. I hear them whispering about ghosts that supposedly dwell in my shadows. They point to the hanging vines from my collapsed tin roof, imagining monsters hiding in my ruins. I cradle their imagination. If my decay serves to give the children of Sukanta Pally a local legend, a terrifying thrill on their walk to school, then perhaps my rusting bones still carry some value in them after all.
Deeper inside, in the overgrown, murky gloom of my bowels, the Bengal foxes awake at dusk. I feel the soft padding of their paws on my cracked concrete floors, their sharp, high-pitched howl, resounding through my halls like a banshee’s wail: a wild, haunting lullaby that the residents of Sukanta Pally have intimately learnt to sleep through. And when the sudden, violent kalbaishakhi storms wreck through the city in the spring, scouring the trees of their limbs, my well-worn awnings extend shelter to the neighbourhood’s dogs and cats, who curl up against my dry, warm foundation. Occasionally, on the coldest January nights when the fog rolls thick off the Hooghly River and settles over Behala, a lone beggar will slip through the gaps of my fences, finding a quiet, windless corner to sleep. I feel a sense of wistful pride in this newfound purpose. My chimneys no longer bellow smoke into the city or forge steel into shapes which yielded relief to the masses. But I can still hold its most vulnerable in my arms in ways of providing comfort. In this quieter life, I am an asylum for the wild, the imaginative and the weary.
There is, though, one time of the year when my two lives cease to feel separate. When the present embraces the past, and the speed surrenders effortlessly to stillness. When autumn arrives and the humidity relents, the city teaches its most beautiful lesson: communion. Durga Puja in these narrow lanes is fiercely intimate.
The local boys string meagre, flickering LED lights over my rusted gates and across the sprawling branches of the banyan tree. The decorations are modest, often cobbled together with limited neighbourhood funds, but they shine with a stubborn, defiant joy. When the visceral, chest-thumping rhythm of the dhak reverberates through me, it shakes loose the flakes of my old paint, mingling them with the dust of the dancing crowd. The city imparts that devotion is not about ostensible budgets or corporate grandeur, but is about the warmth of a shared, chaotic celebration in the face of urban decay. For those five days, draped in cheap, blinking lights, my cadaver stirs to life again, vibrating with the same energy that animates the people of this city.
I know that I am being erased one piece at a time. The rust has eaten the letters of my nameplate, and the city pushes past me, eager and endlessly hungry. Regardless, I have come to realise that a husk is never truly empty. My iron holds the memory of a million footsteps, a million frantic shouts, a million raindrops and a million quiet sighs. Peer into me and you will find Kolkata staring right back at you; weathered by history, stitched together with contradictions, crumbling around the edges and yet clinging with hushed defiance to life and beauty.
About the Author:
Arushi Sharma
Arushi Sharma is currently in her fourth year studying Sociology at St. Xavier's College (Autonomous), Kolkata. She is fascinated by how communities, histories, and backgrounds shape individual indentities and wants to understand how power dynamics embedded in larger structures impact people's lives. Always eager to view the world from a fresh perspectives, Arushi hopes to translate her academic insights into real-world action, helping to build stronger, more inclusive spaces both within and beyond the classroom. Guided by a commitment to inclusivity, she believes that meaningful change begins when we actively challenge inequalities and ensure every voice is valued.
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