If you had made a beeline for Victoria Memorial to take a look at Queen Victoria’s fortepiano, we suggest you plan a revisit.

The museum authorities on June 30 unveiled a desk that was used by Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay. The desk, on which the author probably wrote or corrected Vande Mataram, has been restored and is being displayed to “start off the writer’s 175th birth anniversary year”.

Swapan Chakravorty, secretary and curator of Victoria Memorial Hall, said there was a conscious effort to connect with visitors. “The desk has been standing for ages in the National Leader’s Gallery on the first floor, but without proper signs and illumination, very few visitors would have spotted it,” he said.

The desk had been donated to the Victoria Memorial in 1937 by Chattopadhyay’s grandson, Brojendrasundar Bandyopadhyay.

And though there was no proof, it was claimed by some, perhaps apocryphally, that Chattopadhyay had used it for nearly two decades from the 1870s to write most of his major works like Anandamath, Kapalkundala, Kamalakanter Daptar, Krishnakanter Will, Devi Chaudhurani and Vande Mataram.

The desk came to be selected for special display as part of a project work by senior restorer R. Savita and education officer Piyasi Bharasa, who attended a culture ministry-funded leadership training programme at the British Museum. Savita recalled the care needed in the restoration, where every process, including varnishing, had to be kept reversible.

This photograph, of singer Hemanta Mukhopadhyay (right) with poet Subhash Mukhopadhyay, was one of the many rare pictures on display at a recent exhibition and soiree at the Nandan complex to mark the singer’s 92nd birth anniversary

Because the Victoria Memorial was not built as a museum, “space management is a major problem”, Chakravorty told Metro. “So we have innumerable treasures just lying around or stacked in forgotten corners. We are now in the process of getting a good curatorial team that will keep all issues in mind and still expand public access in a phased manner.

Here comes the sun

This Durga Puja, at least one puja committee has spared a thought for planet Earth, and they have done it by looking towards the sun.

Mahatirtham Citizens’ Forum, a club in Kalikapur, off the EM Bypass, has decided to build a solar pandal this Puja.

The organisers said they would produce 30kW of electricity from around 120 solar panels fitted on the surface of the pandal. The decorations will be done with LED lamps, Chandernagore-style, all using solar energy.

“Our electricity bill will come down by Rs 9,000. And we’ll also cut down on greenhouse emissions by nearly 1.5 tonnes,” said alternative energy expert S.P. Gon Choudhury, the president of Mahatirtham.

Awards

The British Council is inviting applications for the Young Creative Entrepreneur Award 2012. Check out www.britishcouncil.org/india-arts-yce.htm for details.

(Contributed by Sebanti Sarkar and Jayanta Basu)