In a city where heritage and innovation often run on parallel tracks, Kolkata’s iconic Trams once again became vehicles of storytelling and resistance. This year in March 28 to 31, the city witnessed a remarkable transformation of its vintage Trams into vibrant, moving exhibitions as part of the Sundarbans TramJatra 2025—a festival that carried the magic and urgency of the Sundarbans straight through the heart of the metropolis. I was fortunate to be invited and visit the site of action and engage in the festivity of four-day dance drama and duet on the trundling Trams along the main arteries of Kolkata.
TramJatra 2025 transformed Kolkata’s streets into a vibrant, moving festival—where art, heritage, and sustainability rode the rails. Each Tram became a rolling canvas, celebrating the spirit of the Sundarbans with stories of time, travel, and timeless charm. 
Painted in bright lemon green, a double-carriage Tram numbered 256 stands proudly at the Esplanade Tram Station, located in the heart of the city, waiting for passengers. 
During the recent TramJatra festival in Kolkata, several unique collectible items were distributed to the passengers and other admirers and enthusiasts who participated in the four-day event. 
Roberto, a Tram driver and conductor from Australia, engages with passengers during Kolkata’s TramJatra, highlighting the ecological fragility of the Sundarbans mangroves and the usage of Trams as an ecofriendly mode of transport. 
Luxury on Rails! A sleek, air-conditioned single carriage Tramno.245 has started to hit the tracks, promising a ride in silence and cool comfort inside the Tram, away from the sweltering air outside. 
A vibrant gathering of Indian and Australian Tram conductors and drivers, dressed in uniform and engaging with paparazzi at the Esplanade Tram Station in Kolkata during the TramJatra.
[ Photos CopyRight N. Shiva Kumar ]
A celebration of environmental consciousness, local culture, and global solidarity, this year’s TramJatra took the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans as its central theme, blending ecology with art, activism with nostalgia, and community with the movement of Trams and their prudent utility in today’s world.
A Forest on Tracks
Historically, Trams in India date back to 1873, when the first horse-drawn Tram made its journey through the streets of Kolkata (then Calcutta), making the city the birthplace of Tramways in Asia. Electrified in 1902, these Trams became an enduring part of Kolkata’s urban fabric, offering an eco-friendly and leisurely mode of transport through the city’s colonial-era boulevards. While other Indian cities like Mumbai, Chennai, and Delhi gradually phased out their Tram systems by the late 20th century, Kolkata remains the last city in India where Trams still run, albeit in limited numbers.
Once considered outdated, these Trams have found renewed cultural relevance—not only as heritage artifacts but also as low-emission transport solutions in the face of growing climate crises. Their very endurance mirrors the city’s stubborn yet poetic resistance to removal, making them powerful symbols for contemporary movements like TramJatra. Even after 152 years the Trams are tantalizing and refuse to be vanish from Kolkata as Trams are making a comeback world over for their use as public transport.
My Temptations with Trams
My first Tram journey in 1997 was a revelation—the slow, steady rhythm of its movement was an antidote to the city’s perpetual rush. The charm deepened in subsequent rides in 2007 and 2017, each journey a momentary escape into a time when travel was about more than just reaching a destination. In recent months, my three visits to Kolkata from Delhi and Hyderabad were marked by eager anticipation. I found myself waiting eagerly and endlessly for a Tram, their numbers dwindling alarmingly due to state and central governments negligence.
The TramJatra festival kicked off in the heart of the city at the historic Esplanade Tram Terminus, where the specially designed “Sundarbans Trams” was unveiled. Adorned with vivid murals of Bengal tigers, fishing cats, birds of the forests, reptiles, mangrove roots, and swirling waterways, the Tram was both an artwork and a call to action. Inside, the vehicle was transformed into a multisensory journey: passengers encountered the sounds of creaking forests, birdsong, and rushing tides, punctuated with storytelling installations that narrated the lives of those who call the Sundarbans home.
The Tram ran free of charge along the Gariahat–Esplanade–Shyambazar route daily from 10:30 am to 5:30 pm in the main lanes of Kolkata. For those who hopped aboard, it wasn’t merely a ride through the city’s Tramlines—it was a passage into a fragile world shaped by resilience and climate change. Some passengers were pleasantly surprised to be engaged with Australian Tram conductors dressed in their traditional dress and giving specially printed TramJatra tickets albeit free of cost.
Festival as Forum
Beyond the enchanting visuals and immersive experiences inside and outside of the decorated Tram, TramJatra 2025 opened up public space as a participatory learning zone. Each evening from March 28 to 30, under the many ancient trees of the Esplanade Tram terminus metamorphosed into a cultural open theatre like a public square, buzzing with workshops, discussions, musical performances, and dance drama. The theme derived connections between the ecological wisdom embedded in local communities and the larger narrative of urban resilience.
Workshops conducted by students, activists, and artists explored themes ranging from climate displacement and biodiversity conservation to the folklore of the forest. Schoolchildren painted their visions of the mangroves, while community elders from Sundarbans villages shared oral histories and strategies of survival in an increasingly volatile climate.
Citizens’ Assembly: Voices from the Margins
The festival culminated on March 31 with a Citizens’ Assembly at the plush ICCR Rabindranath Tagore Centre, where grassroots voices, scholars, climate scientists, and urban planners came together in a unique public consultation format.
Here, the focus shifted from celebration to solution. Presentations ranged from mangrove afforestation initiatives and community-led disaster preparedness models to urban waste management practices that impact the delta. What emerged was a clear call: that Kolkata’s future is intertwined with that of its surrounding ecosystems, and that climate justice must include those whose livelihoods are most at risk.
A Global Festival with Local Roots
Though deeply rooted in Bengal’s landscape, TramJatra spirit has always been transnational. Conceived in the late 1990s as a cultural exchange between Melbourne and Kolkata’s Tram communities, the event has evolved into a celebration of shared struggles and solidarities across borders.
This year’s edition was co-curated by Roberto D’Andrea, a former Tram conductor from Melbourne and TramJatra co-founder, along with Dr. Mick Douglas, Associate Professor at RMIT University. Their collaboration emphasized how artistic mobility—quite literally on wheels—can foster global awareness and local impact. Others who came all the way from Australia to participate in the TramJatra were Neal Haslem, Associate Dean from RMIT university, Melbourne, Tony Graham and Philip Lethlean. The others from India were Debashish, Sagnik, Sajal, Deep, Prathik, Souro, Souvik, Jayanta, Udit, Mahadeb and many more enthusiasts from Calcutta Tram Users Association [CTUA]
The TramJatra 2025 event in Kolkata featured participation from Australian artists, notably the group known as “The Connies.” This ensemble collaborated with Indian non-governmental organizations, aiming to promote environmental awareness and deepen cultural connections between Australia and India via the revival of Trams.
“The Sundarbans TramJatra was not just about Kolkata,” said D’Andrea. “It was about connecting rivers, deltas, wetlands, and the communities who depend on them—from Australia’s Murray-Darling to the Bay of Bengal.”
Douglas echoed the sentiment, speaking on the theme of climate injustice: “It is often the people who contribute least to climate change who suffer the most from it. This Tram, this festival, gives them a platform—literally a moving one—to be seen and heard.”
Heritage in Motion
At a time when many Indian cities are discarding their old public transport systems in the rush toward hypermodern infrastructure, Kolkata’s Tramways stand not just as a remnant of colonial history, but as a canvas for contemporary expression. The Sundarbans TramJatra 2025 demonstrated that public transport can be more than a means to an end—it can be a medium of imagination.
The Tram as metaphor was inescapable. It is slow, deliberate, open to the city. Unlike air-conditioned metros or ride-shares, it invites encounters. It resists haste. And in this moment of environmental emergency, the slow but steady, sustainable rhythm of the Tram may offer us a model for how to rethink not just mobility, but our way of life.
Beyond the Tracks
By bringing the Sundarbans into the city’s consciousness—not through a lecture hall but on the move—the TramJatra festival reminded Kolkata’s that the delta is not a distant world. The rain that floods Park Street, the fish in the Sunday bazaar, the salt in the air—everything is entangled with a lush life of intermingling parameters that keeps nature a power to reckon.
For four days, a city paused to listen to the forests. And in that listening, perhaps, lies the first step toward healing.
-N.Shiva Kumar
