The site is a colonial structure that belongs to the Chaudhuri’s (landlords of Baruipur in the suburbs of Kolkata) and is popularly known as Chaudhuri Bari or as Baruipur Rajbari. Presently, due to the end of the feudal era, the family does not reside here and for the purpose of maintenance, the family rents out the premises for film shootings. Many a popular Bengali film like Didi Amar Mao, Devdas, Bariwali, etc. were shot in this house. This building thus survives in public memory in two ways: one, as the old palace of the Chaudhuris, and the other being the house of the owners depicted in the films. The building thus survives both in the real and fictional memory of the public. As one enters the house one encounters the numerous plaques that are spread all around the interior walls that refer to events that took place in the house when the real owners resided. Parallely, one also encounters the layers of paint on the walls that have been used by film crews. In fact, I had worked with a group from Satyajit Ray Film Institute, Kolkata to shoot a students’ film here. I was thus encountering marks of memories that were both real and fictional.

So as an initial process, I started looking at all the films shot in this building and collected stills that included the image of this house. In reference to these frames, I started creating texts and used them as fake plaques, placing them all over the building beside the original ones. So, all of a sudden, there were narratives that belonged to films or novels but read as the real history of the house.