The Coimbatore Corporation organised a photo exhibition and heritage walk here on Wednesday to mark the 210th year of formation of Coimbatore as district headquarters.

The exhibition had 40 photographs of heritage buildings, important places in the city and the great men the city had seen and 30 paintings of heritage buildings and places in the city.

It was inaugurated by Archana Patnaik, the District Collector, in the presence of A.K. Viswanathan, City Police Commissioner, and K. Vijayakarthikeyan, Corporation Commissioner. The event was supported by non-government organisations Siruthuli, Residents' Awareness Association of Coimbatore, INTACH, TASK and Jama’at-e-Islami Hind.

The photographs were taken from the collections of S.M. Sriramulu Naidu, the founder of Pakshiraja Studios, K. Maruthachalam, Managing Director of Photo Centre, G.K. Sundaram, former Chairman of Lakshmi Mills, and Rajesh Govindarajulu, Managing Director of Hiranmayi Jewelers. The paintings were from the Vanavarayar Foundation.

The heritage walk started from the corporation office and covered historic buildings like the house of Rathnasabapathy Mudaliar, a former municipal chairperson, the clock tower, St. Michael's Cathedral, Moses Gnanabaranam Eye Hospital and the cinema Theatre Delite.

The corporation school students and members of the public participated in the walk.

Historian C.R. Elangovan, who has authored eight books on Coimbatore, explained the historic importance of each building to the people.

Given the declining interest in books, such events have become necessary to encourage youngsters to learn the heritage of the city, he said and added that the next time, though, it should be organised on a bigger scale.

Over 1,400 people in the city were enthralled by the energy in the air that was created by Wadaiko, a Japanese drum performance by a band named Bachi Atari, who came all the way from Tokyo to the city on Friday. 

Tetsu Minegishi, the main drummer, and Masashi Okawa and Yuhei Motoyama, his partners created magic with the drums and two different percussion instruments that left the crowd asking for more. 

"The instruments are called tsuzumi, chappa, atarigane and daitaiko," said Shanmuga Priya, director, ABK-AOTS Dosokai, Tamil Nadu Coimbatore chapter. 

The performance of Wadaiko, traditional Japanese drums made famous by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Japan this year, was organised in the city by The Japan Foundation, New Delhi, and The Consulate-General of Japan (CGJ) at Chennai in association with ABK-AOTS Dosokai, Coimbatore chapter. 

"The city reminds us a little of Tokyo as the climate of Tokyo is similar to Coimbatore's," said Kaayoko Furukawa, consul, CGJ. "We are overwhelmed by the response that we got here and will definitely come back to host a Japan film festival very soon," she added. 

Even though the performers could not speak English, they said they communicated with the audience through their music. 

"The energy level in the city was very high and we enjoyed the vigour and reaction of the audience that encouraged us to perform diverse beats," said Tetsu. 

"We loved the music. Even though it looked similar to our temple instruments, they sounded very unique and different," said Rajesh Kumar, a businessman. Several college students came directly after their classes to attend the performance. 

This was their final performance in the country as they had already performed in New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai this week. "They performed in Chennai on Thursday and came directly from there to the city," said Shanmuga Priya. 

Source: The Hindu