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The sense of aestheticism bears the testimony of a nation. It is for various reasons, specially for poverty, aggression of alien culture, negligence, anxiety and restlessness of mind depriving a man of his blossoming sense of beauty and nature. This is utterly true for a developing country like Bangladesh. Here, in this passage, light has been thrown on how, with the advancement of the civilised society, our sense of aestheticism is being depleted.
Poet laureate Rabindranath Tagore in one of his poems called for returning to the nature saying, "Dao feray se aranya, laha feray a nagar" (Get back to nature, take away the city). William Wordsworth embodied nature as a living spirit and Jon Keats in his famous poem wrote: "Truth is beauty-beauty is truth". All these lines no longer inspire the toiling masses to think a bit about the necessity of aestheticism in life. Not only the poor section of people but also the rich have no time to think about the beauty of nature, about enrichment of their and other people's minds through the creation of artistic imageries and structures.
Even, the magnificent structures, palaces, archaeological sites which evoke a keen sense of aestheticism among art loving people are being damaged and kept uncared for years.
In this competitive world of strain and haste, people have no room to take even a long breath, nor they have the opportunity to visit a sea beach, a museum or an archaeological site. Not only time is a factor for such inability but want of money and impoverished sensibility are also a major cause that we are being oblivious of our rich heritage of aestheticism.
Now a days, it is almost impossible to find out a house in the urban areas having a garden in front of it. Western-modelled concrete sky scrappers barred the city dwellers even to watch the white speck of cloud in the blue sky. The toiling people have no room to rest their heads under a roof. The middle-income group people, whosome how managed to make their own houses on a fragment of land in the city or urban areas, can not think of leaving even a yard of land for balcony or for open space to add to the beauty of their houses. Even the aboriginal people who used to paint their mud - built houses with geometrical motifs, leaves and flowers, are forgetting their century - old practices because of want and a hard labour during the most of the time of the days to earn a handful of morsel.
However, there is an exception for the rich section of people, having houses in the posh areas with dozens of servants, lawns and court yards and of course gardens in front of their houses. But the number of such lucky billionaires is negligible. The common people do not have the access to such beautifully - decorated houses. The steel - made entrance and the watchmen guarding those houses made a person hesitant and afraid even to peep through the grill to have a look inside the compound.
As frolicking around the villas of posh areas remained a taboo, the common people have no choice but to visit parks, museums, sea shore and archaeological sites and watch with broken heart our rich cultural heritage and our vanishing sense of aestheticism.
While we visit the Lalbagh fort in Dhaka, the palace of Dighapatiya in Natore or the ancient Monastery of Paharpur, we feel proud of our rich past glory and at the same time feel ashamed for our present dilapidated, abandoned, impoverished sense of beauty and truth. Even those past grandeurs are not being maintained properly for our future generation.
If we visit the palace of the forlorn king of Dighapatya in Natore, we are surely be charmed with its unparalleled beauty but also be sad to watch how carelessly 'a thing of beauty is a joy for ever' is being maintained. The priceless, superb marble statues are kept under open sky for nearly one hundred years. Not a single person of the government is there with the sensibility to raise a roof upon these prized possessions. Cracks have been formed in the marbles with deposition of green moss and dust.
Once the largest seat of learning for the Buddists' studies, the Sompura Vihara at Paharpur remained one of the busiest tourists' spot of the northern region for its beauty and archaeological value. In the recent years, the site has been renovated. It is better to say denovated (I'm afraid, there is no such word in the dictionary). Because after renovation, the beauty of Paharpur has been entirely vanished. Even the terracotta replicas which have been replaced for original ones looked blurred and counterfeit (as seen in the pictures). Not only the Paharpur site, the same condition of negligence of preserving the rare sites of aestheticism can be noticed elsewhere in the country. From Lalbagh fort to the Kusmba Mosque, from the Chhoto Sona mosque to the Mainamati, the same scene of negligence can be noticed. Now let us see how keen the sense of the kings of Dighapatya bore and how these are vanishing for mere negligence.
The kings of Dighapatiya were great admirers of aestheticism. Almost all the kings and their family members were highly educated, some of them often visited various European countries and brought back with them a prized piece of art or craft. Among the kings, the names of Raja Prasanna Nath Roy, Pramada Nath Roy, Sarat Kumar Roy and Basanta Kumar Roy are worth mentioning. Besides carrying out a number of welfare - oriented work, the Rajas established a number of theatres, cinema halls, auditoriums, museums and hospitals.
The palace of Dighapatiya bears an almost unparalleled and neat sense of aesthetics. At first sight, the lofty entrance resembles the famous Westminster Tower and Big Ben. The coloured tiled roof-top, the circular designs and decoration of the clock room above the entrance gate, the projected, horizontal cornices, cone - shaped white domes and pillars are really eye catching. The large clock atop the entrance is still active and gives accurate time with a booming sound every hour.
The entrance door is protected by a large, massive iron grill. Just inside the entrance, a metalled road leads to the main palace. The entire palace is encircled with a deep-water trench (moat). On the road beside the entrance, there is a floating bridge. At the first sight, no one can perceive that it is a floating bridge. There are grilled iron fences on both sides of the bridge.
In the middle of the one - storied main building there is a vast hall room. Light comes into the hall room from under the dome. In the past, the marble floor of the palace had been covered with a large Persian carpet. At the entrance of the main room, there stands an armoured suit made of bronze. The hall room is decorated with a sofa that can sit four persons at a time.
The large French crystal chandelier at the centre of the ceiling is a beauty. There was once a throne with gold handles. It has now been taken to the Dhaka museum. Besides the hall room, there are several bed rooms and other rooms. Every room is neatly decorated and furnished.
In the surrounding garden, there are four life-sized marble statues and four more made of iron. Once one looks at those marble statues, it is hard to withdraw the eyes. The statue of a bare-breasted mother with loosening apparels rebuking her child is lovely for its artistry. Another white marble statue of a young woman clothed in ultra-white thin saree through which the breast and the non-creased abdomen are clearly visible is really worth seeing. Still another bare-breasted lady with a howling dog is simply beautiful. There is another marvellous statue made of black stone, often missed by the visitors, beside the lake surrounding the palace. The bare-breasted woman engaged in angling is so natural that at first sight it seems a dark tanned woman near the water really engrossed in fishing. There are two artificial fountains inside the garden. In the middle of one fountain, there are two iron statues of a man and a woman holding a rod; beneath the rod, there are three life-sized swans of stone. There is also a large porcelain bath tub and a swimming pool used for the kings and the queens.
So far as it is known, Sarat Kumar Roy was a great admirer and collector of antiques, especially watches and clocks. In the Lion's palace ( presently known as Kumar Palace), there was a large, glass - protected table full of over 200 rare clocks and watches. But all have been looted during the Liberation War and some of them were taken to the then West Pakistan. Even after liberation, a former deputy commissioner and another army officer reportedly emptied the collection. Of this lost collection, a large fish swimming at the fountain and making musical sounds at intervals of 15 minutes deserve mentioning. There were at least 15 mechanised and single seated sports cars. Skeletons of some of those rare vehicles are still kept outside the palace.
The most shocking aspect of the matter is that the marble statues have been kept under the open sky. Moss has gathered at the foot of these rare sculptures and continuous sunlight, rain, wind and particles of dust are eroding the statues. Although hundreds of tourists visit this place every year, special permission from the deputy commissioner of Natore is needed for a visit. This palace could earn a good revenue if it is made open to the public and a token amount charged from each visitor for meeting the maintenance and renovation cost.
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