News that Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan will soon get the prestigious UNESCO World Heritage Site tag has been hailed by the heritage community as well as academics in equal measure. It’s been a long time coming. Founded by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore in 1921 on 1,130 acres of land, it will have the distinction of being the world’s first living heritage university; meaning that it will be the first time that a university that is functioning and fully operational will get a heritage tag from the celebrated world body.

It’s a huge development, clearly, especially in a country that’s still taking baby steps when it comes to encouraging the common man to fully understand, appreciate and engage with living history in a seamless, organic manner. Closer home, in our own city, barring sites like its historic railway stations, Victoria Terminus [today’s CSMT] and Churchgate, CSMVS, and a few religious landmarks [during hours of prayer] most of our other prized living heritage remains under lock and key when not in use by its occupants during working hours. That means on most weekends, which is when a majority of our public are up and about, these places remain inaccessible to step into, forget about being able to explore and discover its interiors.