School students celebrate silver jubilee of Odisha Heritage Day organised by a heritage body in Bhubaneswar on Thursday. Pictures by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, April 14: When 14-year-old Keshav Patnaik explored the 10th century Mukteswar temple, he was awe struck by the intricate designs that sculptors had etched on the rocks of the monument during ancient times.

Shilpa, a Class VIII student, was mesmerised by the beautiful carvings of the Taleswar temple and wished she had come here earlier.

Keshav and Shilpa were a part of the ‘Heritage Hunt’ that the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) had organised to celebrate Orissa Heritage Day.

To celebrate its silver jubilee year, the heritage body held interesting activities to create awareness among youngsters. It has also joined hands with corporate houses to repair and beautify city’s dilapidated ancient temples.

The event to launch the project began with hundreds of schoolchildren getting together at the Kedar Gouri Square for a ‘Heritage Hunt’.

“To create interest among young students towards the state’s heritage and its preservation, we gave them a collage of four photographs of certain sculptural motifs of different temples. We took them to various temples and they had to spot the particular designs and name the monument and location of the design,” said S.K.B. Narayan, convener, Intach.

“This game led them to explore the monuments and the students were immersed in wonder to observe the sculptural work,” he added.

Students of Classes VII-X from various schools visited several temples in the Old Town area.

“It is unbelievable that these temples were created so many centuries ago when there was no technology to facilitate creation of such beautiful art on rocks,” said Santosh Bhuyan, a Heritage Hunt participant.

The much-awaited repair and beautification of Taleswara temple was also started on the occasion.

“Last year we had approached different corporate houses in the state to finance maintenance work of dilapidated temples and monuments of the city. The Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU) had adopted the eighth century Taleswara temple,” said Narayan.

“The work began today and more temples will be soon repaired with financial help from other corporate houses,” he added.

Chairman-cum-managing director of CESU, B.C. Jena, inaugurated the Taleswara repair work.

A painting competition was also organised for junior schoolchildren. A photo exhibition on lesser known monuments of the city was also held in the evening at Bhanja Kala Mandap.