New Delhi: Eighteen-year-old girl, sitting pretty in pink and the Taj Mahal by moonlight as a backdrop. This is what Joanne Taylor wants her Taj memories to remain forever.
An Indophile to the core, the Australian scholar-photographer’s romance with India began in 1971 with her first glimpse of the Taj Mahal by moonlight.
Thirty-five years later, her passion for Indian monuments continues in the form of a book.
Four years ago, the Sydney-based writer happened to visit another historical city when she accepted a friend’s invitation to visit his ancestral home in the bylanes of north Kolkata.
The old dilapidated palaces and the splendour of an era gone by captivated her so much that she kept coming back again and again to Calcutta, as Joanne prefers to call it.
Several visits to the city, hundreds of bumpy rickshaw rides and so many walks through the dark and dingy alleys later, Joanne is out with a coffe table, The Forgotten Palaces of Calcutta.
Joanne chose to capture architectural wonders of Bengal because of its British influence. Unlike other cities like Delhi and Hyderabad with it’s Mughal structure, she found certain "freshness" in Kolkata monuments.
"More than I coming to Calcutta, it’s like Calcutta coming to me," she says about the book.
Joanne, it seems, is fascinated by everything Calcuttan, especially the temples. So much so, that during her last trip to Kaalighat and Dhakineswar, she played the guide to her friends.
After having traveled to its every corner, she knows the city inside out. Her knowledge of the city could put any Calcuttan to shame.
"I would love to write about the temples, and also about the Durga Puja, which will be wonderful because it’s so colourful and vibrant," she says.
Joanne also dreams of making a film on the palaces of Kolkata. "That could make for a great film I think, I just need to be initiated," she says wistfully.
Her book takes one on a journey through every nook and cranny of the crowded city, chronicling the past grandeur of the palaces, lacing stories with juicy anecdotes like a mother reading a bedtime story.
But is her story told?
"I’d like to write another book on Calcutta," she says. "The city has always been brought about on a negative light, but there’s so much to the city that’s yet to be showcased."
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