Thursday 28 Mar 2024

From IT to Art and Culture

Promoting cultural tourism projects, the founder director of ‘banglanatak dot com’ - Amitava Bhattacharya who was in Goa recently, talks about how the idea came about and how traditional skills in art and craft can provide sustainable livelihood to artists and artisans

BHARATI PAWASKAR | OCTOBER 22, 2017, 06:21 PM IST
From IT to Art and Culture

For Amitava Bhattacharya, shifting from a successful career in the Information Technology sector in the United States to focusing on uplifting the art and culture scene in India, was a complete shift in the paradigm. However, after taking this major decision of his life at 32, today, 17 years later, this founder chairman of a social enterprise working with a mission to foster pro-poor growth in India calls himself a lucky man who is living his dream along with 100 plus strength of his like-minded team at banglanatak dot com which has won many awards and accreditations - national and international.
But what was the turning point in his life that compelled this software engineer to turn his back to the advances in modern technology and embrace traditional art, and uplift artists, especially in rural India?
Amitava remembers that after a decade (1989-99) of working as a software engineer in India and abroad, and having spent the last five years of it in America, he realised that the load of stress that mounted at the end of each single day was far more heavier than his high end job could pay him. "True, my bank balance was swelling but it didn't make me happy. The cold, mechanical lifestyle was killing me. I felt repelled. In that virtual world I couldn't experience life in its fullest vibrancy. The artificial business interactions and superficial relationships were not what I craved for in life," he admits. Grown up in a culturally vibrant Kolkata, Amitava suffocated in the virtual world in America and longed to be back to his roots in India.
"It was killing my spirit, my job depressed me. ‘Enough is enough', I thought one day and said goodbye to both - the IT and the US. Wishing to return to my country to celebrate the unique diversity of its multiple cultures, each more vibrant and colourful than the other, I quit. Money wouldn't buy that warmth offered by the close knit communities back home. All I wanted was solace and to be with my people, in my own land. My wife, who is my best friend since our engineering days, supported my decision and we decided to return to India," recalls Amitava.
However, upon returning, the question mark of ‘what next' lay before Amitava. But he knew that delving into culture was the way to go. "Culture is a great enabler. Art brings people together, and culture connects them. It was a self-searching exercise. I thought of giving it a try as I was sure it wouldn't bore me. So I formed ‘banglanatak dot com' in 2000 which was a social development organisation specialising in culture and development," briefs Amitava.
IIT had taught Amitava a fundamental thing, that if the process is good, the product will be good. If the product is bad, one should check the process. And he decided to apply this principle in his new venture. Another experience that greatly helped him was in 2008 when the London School of Economics offered him Gurukul Scholarship - a programme on leadership and excellence where 12 persons from across the globe were selected. Reluctant to accept it first, Amitava went through the three-month programme that taught him what research is. "I learnt, that it is not ‘what', but ‘why' is important when you confront a problem and seek solution. This gave me fantastic inroads into our society. All this while we were working at what their problem is, but the programme gave me insight to look into the reasons, why the problem exists. My perception changed and our graph at banglanatak went up - the credit must go to LSE," smiles the founder director, ‘banglanatak'.
When he further delved in ‘why', he got the answer as ‘skill'. Working with a skill and without a skill makes the difference. Skills can lead to economy and enterprise. They can resolve the problems. If individual skills are shared and developed in constructive manner, it can develop the entire village community. Amitava, captured the nuance of the message and took a leap. His experience with rural artists revealed the fact that engagement is important for any village community to prosper. Culture plays an important role in including and engaging people in some common activity. He rested his laurels on art and culture to help the rural India thrive. Today, ‘banglanatak' has touched one million people through their various projects.
"We are reviving Gandhian thought ‘Phir Gandhi' in Jharkhand. The Gandhi Ashram there will be revived into a museum which can help cultural tourism in Jharkhand, giving rise to meaningful employment. Imbibing ‘Charakha' philosophy to make villages self-sufficient, economically, is what we need to focus when we talk of progress of the nation," he discloses about the organisations recent projects.
Oral and performing folk art traditions could emerge as a cultural capital for developing rural enterprises, believes Amitava. Cultural capital in the form of oral and performing art traditions is an asset for developing rural enterprise, he feels. Pointing out that banglanatak's flagship project, ‘Art for Livelihood' (AFL) involves rural community artists engaged in various traditional art forms across India, he adds, "AFL was floated as a culture-based development model in 2004 and today we are associated with 45,000 families of rural artists in India."
Down in Goa, too he has a few plans in place on how to improve the rural art and culture scene. "I am visiting Ibrampur with my team to study the possibilities of uplifting rural Goa through art and culture," states Amitava who is organising various workshops on handicraft, bamboo, lavo, terracotta and coconut shendri weaving in Ibrampur (Pernem), Valpoi (Sattari), Karvem (Canacona), Avedem (Salcete), Mayem (Bicholim) where local artists and artisans will assimilate to upgrade and interchange their skills over the next two months - November and December.
Today, with the world of techonology growing at a fact paced, studies also point to a growing sense of diconnect in people's lives. And Amitava believes that this gap can be bridged to art. "Let's find the missing link and connect Indian society. Let's bond through art. Let's live and let live," concludes this visionary.

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