Cranking Echoes of the Past

🖊️Samap Chatterjee

Amidst the towering stacks of books and literary debates at the International Kolkata Book Fair, there has been a surprising attraction that has captured the hearts of many more than any other; the bioscope show has drawn crowds to itself as easily as a magnet attracts iron filings. Well-known artists are becoming aware and visiting this stall.
Appearing like a wooden box from a distance, once people peer through its two eyepieces, they are taken way back into another time. Besides entertainment, placing this traditional form of cultural preservation inside one of the largest book fairs in Asia is an act unto itself.
This installation's brilliance shall be noted because of its vintage nature. In an age where virtual reality helmets are providing interactive experiences and hand-held devices have limitless information available, here is a hand-cranked machine providing images in grainy form and simple stories. Yet still, punters line up patiently while children pull at their parent's sleeves and teenagers, who everyone believes are enslaved to their devices, await patiently for their turn out of sheer curiosity.

The juxtaposition is intentional and poignant. A book fair celebrates the written word, the tangible joy of printed pages. The bioscope celebrates visual storytelling through mechanical means. Both are "old technologies" in today's lexicon, yet both remind us that engagement doesn't require Wi-Fi signals or loading screens.
While looking through contemporary fiction and conversing about modern literature, visitors are reminded by the bioscope to have faith in the wonderment of things that have no expiration, and by being innovative does not mean that what came before is now obsolete.
Confused children gather around to know what these devices are, creating a conversation between grandparents who were present when bioscope-Wallas used-to-travel within their neighbourhood. While also ringing bells, shouting and enjoying themselves. 
This stall provides an opportunity for one of the most radical things to do at modern events: to take a step back in time, not in regret, but with appreciation for the simple, yet, magical experiences of yesterday that are still experienced today.