Watched Bow Barracks Forever at Bugis yesterday. First time, I actually got lost in a building in Singapore and succeeded in mastering the floor plan of the building.

Bow Barracks Forever is a movie about the anglo indian community in Calcutta who live in this historically significant building that is crumbling down. The film starts jerkily with the ambience of a “play” with a “set”. But thankfully it picks up amazingly and has sensitive portraits of different kinds of people who you can see as reflections of yourself and others you know.

The best part of the movie was Victor Bannerjee. I didnt know he could act. The last I have seen of him was in “Joggers’ Park” where he looked obese and acted disgustingly. But in this movie, he just blows everyone else away. He is simply amazing as “Peter the Cheater”.

It is a melancholic film. But I loved the settings and the antique furniture sprayed all over. The red building and its antique look. A movie worth a look.

Bow Barracks is an actual building that exists in Calcutta. The only reference on the internet to it was in this Madras Miscellany:

She has offered another Rs. 50 lakhs to the Friend-in-Need Society, Poonamalle High Road, for the building of a two-storey building to house 50 aged and homeless Anglo-Indian men and women. The Society, founded in 1807, is one of the oldest civic amenities in the city. And a third Rs. 50 lakhs has been given for improvements to the 82-year-old Bow Barracks in Calcutta.
The barracks on Bow Street one of the oldest housing complexes of the Calcutta Improvement Trust, are mainly tenanted by lower income Anglo-Indians who have been unable to maintain their flats leave alone the barracks area.

This film goes a long way in raising awareness for the crumbling building. I hope funds get earmarked for restoration.