Kolkata’s Cheenapara Heritage Gallery preserves the city’s 248-year-old Chinese history
The Cheenapara Heritage Gallery has opened in Kolkata’s Tiretta Bazar to preserve the history of the city's Chinese community. The gallery features artifacts and archives documenting the community's 248-year presence in the region.
Why it matters
It highlights the importance of preserving multicultural urban history and the contributions of migrant communities to local heritage.
The newly inaugurated Cheenapara Heritage Gallery sits on Kolkata’s Blackburn Lane alongside the hum of Central Avenue, in the deep folds of Tiretta Bazar. It shares a wall with the old Chinese restaurant Sei Vui.
Inside, under warm yellow lights, objects from Kolkata’s Chinese past fill the rooms. Outside, September rain draws a grey curtain across the afternoon.
Between the two is a portrait, more than five feet tall, of Sun Yat-sen — physician, revolutionary and founder of the Republic of China. A street near Tiretta Bazar’s Poddar Court is named after him.
Cheenapara Heritage Gallery | Photo Credit: Agnibha Chowdhury
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