Tagore Hall, Kozhikode's cultural landmark, reduced to municipal dumping ground
Kozhikode artists are protesting municipal inertia after the Tagore Centenary Hall grounds became a garbage dump following its demolition, leaving the UNESCO City of Literature without its cultural landmark.
Kozhikode artists are protesting municipal inertia after the Tagore Centenary Hall grounds became a garbage dump following its demolition, leaving the UNESCO City of Literature without its cultural landmark.
Kozhikode artists are protesting municipal inertia after the Tagore Centenary Hall grounds became a garbage dump following its demolition, leaving the UNESCO City of Literature without its cultural landmark.
Kozhikode: Once a silent witness to countless film festivals, vibrant musical evenings, and landmark cultural summits, the statue of Rabindranath Tagore now stands as an unwitting sentry over a desolate wasteland and a fleet of municipal garbage trucks. The grounds have been effectively turned into a makeshift dumping yard by the City Corporation, used to hold inorganic refuse and oversized plastic collection bins gathered from across the city.
The bust, originally unveiled in the garden of the Tagore Centenary Hall, remains the lone surviving cultural marker on the premises, which were levelled for redevelopment a year and a half ago. In reality, the venue has been lost to the city’s cultural pulse for far longer; bookings were suspended two years prior to its demolition due to recurring electrical short circuits, water leaks, and a defunct air-conditioning system.
For all practical purposes, Kozhikode’s cultural circuit has been orphaned without Tagore Hall for the past three and a half years. Repeated appeals by local cultural outfits and artists urging civic authorities to kick-start construction have fallen on deaf ears.
Driven by mounting frustration over this official apathy, the Kala Samskarika Samyuktha Vedi (Joint Cultural Forum) is taking the fight to the streets. Activists representing organisations from across the city staged demonstrations outside the Corporation office at 10:00 am today, voicing their dissent through music, dance, and creative performance.
Renowned lyricist and composer Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri inaugurated the agitation. The forum noted that sheer bureaucratic inertia has erased a landmark that long defined the identity of Kozhikode, a city proudly recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature.