Kolkata Street Art Festival - An Initiative By Berger Paints India

Kolkata - The city of joy, is also at times referred to as the 'dirtiest city'. I have done a proper Kolkata tour only years ago when I was a child, but I remember everything quite clearly. Work got me to Kolkata and I was glad to witness the beautification of the city with Berger Paint India's initiative - Kolkata Street Art Festival.

All set to leave for the 'site'-seeing! A pic with Mr.Barun Saha - the lead artist and the foundation painting at Berger House

The day started with a quick briefing at the Berger House where Mr.Chandranath Banerjee told us that as a paints brand, Berger wanted to do something from their end for the city, home to the Berger HQ. The agenda is not only to clean dirty walls and paint them, but also once painted with beautiful artwork, people are less likely to make it dirty again by spitting or throwing garbage.

India at Sports themed paintings by the students - at Eden Park near Gate No.10

The trend of street art and graffiti is on a rise, seen in other cities of India as well as Internationally, but KSAF is an organised street art festival, in association with the KMC, Radio Mirchi and Straightline India. Chandranath went on to say that we need to think about beautifying living spaces, not only our houses but our cities in which we very much live in as well. If they get a good response and are able to seek permissions in other cities, KSAF will extend to other cities as well in the future.

Kolkata Street Art Festival is mentored by the eminent painter Jogen Chowdhury and his key artist Mr. Barun Saha was present that day with us. They told us that the major challenges faced were in scaffolding the walls, painting high walls and painting in very hot/rainy climate. Paints used are naturally Berger Weathercoat All Guard or Anti Dustt, with a few touches given using other canvas paints as required by the artists.

Side-walk walls painted by the students in various themes.

Berger Paints has taken this as an initiative so that there is a start in the city, and the aim is to encourage others to take forward the beautifying of the city they call their home. We embarked on a quick tour of a few places where the painting has been done - Eden Garden Gate No.10, Exide Site, Ballygunge Tram Depot Site, Topsia Site and crossed the Park Circus site while in the car back to Berger House - since we couldn't stop there.

Glad to receive Barun Saha's book called Barun 60 - featuring all his paintings.

I think it's a great initiative by Berger Paints and hopefully soon many more walls and famous spots would be seen covered with a splash of colours and art! Believe me, I could see the different right there between bare walls on which countless posters have been stuck and removed versus these freshly painted walls against which you'd feel like taking pictures! Speaking of which, special mention to Nivedith aka Macro Traveller for clicking this one -

If you would like to know more about this initiative, don't forget to follow Berger Paints on their social media handles and stay updated -

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