Amateur conservationist aims to preserve ancient inscriptions

MUMBAI: Before getting married, Shridatta Raut asked his wife-to-be, Geeta, if she was willing to spend every holiday cleaning tanks, excavating monuments and yanking creepers from the stone walls of Maharashtra’s derelict forts. Considering the amateur conservationist has spent only two Sundays in the last 13 years away from the state’s forts, it was a fair warning.When she agreed, Raut promptly organised their wedding atop Vasai Fort. “Instead of the usual Rs 4 to 5 lakh, I spent only Rs 250,” recalls Raut, who then invested the rest in fort conservation and publishing books about his first love.
On Maharashtra Day this year, Raut — along with his wife, who now shares his passion, and two friends — was busy perfecting a technique to preserve ancient Portuguese inscriptions on about 250 graves. These tombstones litter the concrete floor of Vasai Fort’s Franciscan Church dedicated to St Anthony, who died in 1231. “His native brother-friars, the Portuguese Franciscans, erected this marvelous church to his memory,” writes Father Correa in his book ‘A Visit to Vasai Fort’.
Below the 450-year-old, graceful stone archways, the conservationists painstakingly brushed away the gravel lodged in the indented letters; wet the tombstones and then plastered them with a homemade paper pulp, creating indents with a ear bud. After letting the pulp dry, they peeled it off each tombstone, creating a paper mould of both the inscription and the accompanying monograms.
“There are some people, who have tried to take a rubber mould of the inscriptions, which could damage the stones,” says Abhijit Dandekar, an assistant professor of epigraphy (study of inscriptions) at Pune’s Deccan College, “but since he is not using any chemical, there is no question of damaging the stones.” Dandekar compares Raut’s method to a well-established process called “estampage” in which a wet paper is plastered on an inscription and then a layer of ink is applied to the raised surface of the paper. “The place where the paper has gone inside will remain white while the rest is painted black, so one can read white writing against a black background,” he says.
Translations of these inscriptions prove that nobility were laid to rest below the floors of Vasai church. In Correa’s book, one stone memorialises “Antonio Carneiro, Gentleman of the household of the King our Lord. And of Vitoria Carneira, his wife, and their sons.” Another commemorating “Manoel da Silva”, dates back to 1682, and sports a grim skull and crossbones.
Even after Correa’s book was published in 1993, many of these inscriptions have been lost. Some have faded due to an onslaught of the elements, others have been damaged by the unceasing footfalls over the centuries and still others have been plastered over with concrete in what appears to be a misguided attempt at conservation.
The fort has been under the aegis of the Archeological Survey of India since 1909 as a national protected monument but superintending archaeologist, Jitendra Nath, explained that a “lack of funds” puts many constraints on the conservation process. When asked about the tombstones covered in concrete, Nath said he would have to investigate the issue on his next visit to the fort. “Such things generally don’t happen as our conservation staff is well trained,” he adds. “Our policy is to restore the structure with the least possible disturbance.”
Raut claims that by following his method, the clarity of each inscription and monogram is documented better than in photographs. He first came across a description of this technique in historian Ganesh Hari Khare’s ‘Shanshodhakacha Mitra’. But before attempting it on an actual tombstone, Raut’s wife tested its efficacy on stone idols at home.
On August 18, Raut plans to conduct a workshop for school children on this method — thus multiplying his number of volunteers. Though, he has tried applying kaajal or diluted ink to make the inscriptions stand out, he plans to steer clear of using colour when working with children.
“I then plan to laminate these sheets, affix a date, name and location and send them to Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal, a historical research institute in Pune,” says Raut. His next project is to tackle historical inscriptions in Maharashtra’s other derelict forts.