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<keyword id="6358805" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Patna" source="Orion">Patna</keyword>, the capital city of Bihar, India, is steeped in history and culture, offering a plethora of attractions for travelers to explore. From ancient archaeological sites to vibrant markets and serene parks, Patna has something to offer to every visitor. Whether you're a history buff, a nature enthusiast, or a foodie, here are <keyword id="20647986" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="ten-must-visit-places" source="Orion">ten must-visit places</keyword> in Patna to add to your itinerary when exploring Patna: <keyword id="53042" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Patna-Museum" source="Orion">Patna Museum</keyword>: The Patna Museum, also known as the Jadu Ghar, is a treasure trove of artifacts showcasing <keyword id="20647990" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bihars-rich-heritage" source="Orion">Bihar's rich heritage</keyword>. Founded in 1917, this museum houses an extensive collection of sculptures, coins, paintings, and artifacts dating back to ancient times. Highlights include the Didarganj Yakshi, a life-size terracotta statue from the Mauryan period, and the fossilized tree trunk from the Rajgir hills. Golghar: Built by Captain John Garstin in 1786, Golghar is an iconic <keyword id="20647989" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="landmark-in-Patna" source="Orion">landmark in Patna</keyword>. This massive granary was constructed to store grains during times of famine, but today it offers panoramic views of the cityscape and the Ganges River from its top. Visitors can climb the spiral staircase to reach the viewing platform and admire the surrounding scenery. Mahatma Gandhi Setu: Spanning the Ganges River, the Mahatma Gandhi Setu is one of the longest river bridges in India, connecting Patna with Hajipur. A drive or a leisurely stroll across this bridge offers breathtaking views of the river and the bustling activity along its banks. Watching the sunset from the bridge is a mesmerizing experience not to be missed. Mahavir Mandir: Dedicated to Lord Hanuman, the Mahavir Mandir is one of the most revered <keyword id="20647987" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="temples-in-Patna" source="Orion">temples in Patna</keyword>. This temple attracts thousands of devotees every day who come to seek blessings and offer prayers. The temple's imposing architecture and serene ambiance make it a must-visit spiritual destination in the city. Kumhrar: Kumhrar is an archaeological site that holds the remains of ancient Pataliputra, the capital of the Maurya and Gupta empires. Visitors can explore the excavated ruins, including the remains of ancient pillared halls, stupas, and monasteries. The site offers a fascinating glimpse into Patna's rich historical legacy. Takht Sri Patna Sahib: Takht Sri Patna Sahib, also known as Harmandir Sahib, is a sacred Sikh pilgrimage site located in Patna. It marks the birthplace of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the tenth Sikh Guru. The gurdwara's majestic architecture, serene surroundings, and religious significance make it a <keyword id="20647988" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="must-visit-place-in-Patna" source="Orion">must-visit place in Patna</keyword> for devotees and tourists alike. Patna Zoo: Spread over an expansive area, the Sanjay Gandhi Jaivik Udyan, commonly known as Patna Zoo, is home to a diverse range of flora and fauna. Visitors can explore the zoo's lush greenery, botanical gardens, and animal enclosures housing species like lions, tigers, elephants, and rare birds. Eco Park: Situated on the banks of the Ganges River, Patna Eco Park offers a serene retreat amidst nature. Visitors can enjoy leisurely walks, boat rides, and picnics in the park's scenic surroundings. The park also features landscaped gardens, jogging tracks, and a children's play area. Agam Kuan: Agam Kuan, meaning "unfathomable well," is an ancient archaeological site dating back to the Mauryan period. This circular well is believed to be one of the oldest and deepest in India. Legend has it that Emperor Ashoka used it as a place of torture and execution. Today, it is a popular tourist attraction surrounded by myths and mysteries. Padri Ki Haveli: Padri Ki Haveli, also known as St. Mary's Church, is one of the oldest churches in Bihar. Built in the early 18th century, this historic landmark showcases Indo-European architecture and houses beautiful stained glass windows, sculptures, and paintings. Visitors can explore the church's serene interiors and learn about its colonial-era significance. From exploring ancient archaeological sites to experiencing spiritual serenity and enjoying leisurely strolls in scenic parks, Patna offers a diverse range of attractions for travelers to discover. Whether you're a history enthusiast, a nature lover, or simply seeking cultural immersion, these ten must-visit places in Patna promise an enriching and memorable experience.

Explore one of the oldest Indian city: 10 must-visit places in Patna with friends

<ul><li>A medium format <keyword id="696081" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Pentax">Pentax</keyword> 645Z, a <keyword id="614391" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Panasonic-Lumix">Panasonic Lumix</keyword> GH5, some lenses and lights.</li><li>The price of the equipment comes to about Rs. 9 lakh, though international standards would be worth much more.</li></ul>The white walls of Indira Gandhi National Centre of Arts’ Twin Art Gallery were bare except for regularly spaced numbers written in pencil. The floors were littered with fly-away sheets of butter paper and foam from the massive wooden crates quickly but delicately being unpacked. Despite the churn of activity, the room was quiet and when someone did speak, it was in a whisper - the significance of the work commanding a hushed reverence. The only sound breaking the silence was the clicking of a camera shutter opening and closing. What was unfolding in front of me was the unpacking and digitisation of 46 Tibetan <keyword id="6357076" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="buddhist">Buddhist</keyword> paintings, known as “thangkas.” Some of the pieces had been previously restored while some remain untouched, unrestored. Most of them had not seen the light of day in more than six decades. All were extremely fragile. In one corner, a few hands carefully pulled out plastic and foam-wrapped thangkas from a crate they had just opened. In another area, a few girls sat with swathes of cloth around them, rolls of velcro, and needle and thread ready to start work on making the paintings wall-mountable. 
	
	
	
	
	
	
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Marking the places where the thangkas will be placed. Photo: Jhinuk Sen These thangkas, painted in intricate detail on cotton and silk, had been brought to India by Rahul Sankrityayana and were being digitised by his grandson Manav Parhawk. For scholars of Hindi, Buddhist and Tibetan studies, Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayana is not an unfamiliar name. Sankrityayana was a Padma Bhushan awardee, a scholar and a writer. Called the ‘Father of Hindi Travelogue,’ he spent almost 45 years of his life on the road all over Asia and Europe, wrote more than 130 books and was fluent in almost 13 languages. It was thanks to Sankrityayana that thousands of invaluable palm-leaf manuscripts of Buddhist philosophy, that were considered lost, were finally <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/society/a-forgotten-genius/article18162862.ece">discovered</a>. He brought them all back to India along with these thangkas, artifacts, sketches, photographs and even glass plate negatives. “This is the first time in my 40 years that I have been able to see the fruits of my Nana's tireless efforts. I want to make sure I can see them again, and so that scholars across the globe have access to this immense trove of knowledge for their research,” says Parhawk. Before the thangkas were moved from the crates to be mounted vertically on the walls with cloth and velcro for display, the digitisation began with two cameras, two lights and lots of first-hand yelling at people to stay out of the way. All this equipment costs more than some journalists’ yearly salary. 
	
	
	
	
	
	
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Setting up the equipment took a few hours. Photo: Jhinuk Sen Parhawk, who is a professional fashion and lifestyle photographer, used his medium format digital Pentax 645Z with Pentax 55mm (F2.8) and 120mm macro (F4) lenses. Lenses were switched on the camera body depending on the size of the thangka being shot. 
	
	
	
	
	
	
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A medium format digital Pentax 645Z was used for digiting the artwork. Photo: Jhinuk Sen 
	
	
	
	
	
	
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Pentax's 120mm macro lens. Photo: Jhinuk Sen 
	
	
	
	
	
	
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Pentax's 55mm (F/2.8) lens. Photo: Jhinuk Sen Two Elinchrom Master 600s monobloc flashes and a complicated rig to vertically mount the camera safely six feet off the ground completed the set-up for the main full shots of the thangkas which were laid flat on the ground on a large swath of black cloth. 
	
	



	
	
	
	
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 Two Elinchrom Master 600s monobloc flashes were used for lighting. Photo: Jhinuk Sen Each and every one of the pieces are incredibly detailed, and to capture the close-in shots, the Panasonic Lumix GH5 (20-megapixels) with micro four thirds crop lenses was used. 
	
	
	
	
	
	
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Panasonic Lumix GH5. Photo: Jhinuk Sen 
	
	
	
	
	
	
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Close up shots of the artwork, taken to retain details. Photo: Jhinuk Sen Though the pictures were being shot in a controlled light environment (inside the exhibition hall), the large black cloth was used to reduce flare and big foamcore sheets were used as fill to make sure the thangkas got the right light. While the confusion of the artwork numbering and listing them right had everyone fumbling with multiple lists, the bigger challenge was something else: camera positioning. To ensure the camera was positioned just perfectly over the thangka meant that it had to be placed at a certain height (that’s where the rig comes in). Furthermore, the camera could only be operated manually, which meant multiple stretching exercises by Parhawk to get the frame right so as to avoid stepping on the surface where the art work had been placed. This frequently led to scenes like this one: 
	
	
	
	
	
	
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It's an exercise. Photo: Jhinuk Sen A good few biblical photo ops later, 46 thangkas had been photographed. I then sat down with the team to discuss the process and the equipment they had just used. The main idea behind using the particular equipment that Parhawk did, was to generate the right colours without chromatic or hue shifts. This ensures that the art looks as close to the source as possible when viewed on computers later. The idea is to match the original, not a copy you see on screen. Hue Shifting is described as, “a basic tool for any artist who works on computer. The principle is the following: whenever you want to create a colour derived from another, you have to move its hue along with its brightness.” So, if you have to get a shadow tone from a brighter colour, you cannot just lower the brightness, you need to use this tool to create the right colour of the shadow. In this case, the point was to capture the absolute right colour from the very beginning. Imagine trying to accurately photograph the white colour of a blank canvas. If the lighting is too dark, the colour will actually appear grey rather than white, while an incandescent light may give it a yellow-brown tone. This phenomenon was made popular by the blue-black dress image <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/">that polarised the Internet in 2015</a>. A chromatic shift (often called a chromatic aberration) “is an effect resulting from dispersion in which there is a failure of a lens to focus all colours to the same convergence point. It occurs because lenses have different refractive indices for different wavelengths of light.” These thangkas are full of subtle colours and incredible shading. It was essential to reduce all possible errors to a minimum and it was unlikely that Parhawk and his team would ever have this opportunity again. “I needed to get the right highlights, mid-tones and shadows like they are on the original piece and not what works on a computer screen. This is probably the only time I will get my hands on these, and I needed to make sure I faithfully reproduce colours, luminosities and most importantly, textures of the fine brush strokes,” Parhawk explained. So was the equipment he had at his disposal up to the task? “I use a medium format camera because it shoots 14-bit raw files with massive colour depth and information. The camera has an 11 stop exposure latitude. The colour is very accurate and the sensor is 1.7 times the size of the sensors on any <keyword id="114355" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Nikon">Nikon</keyword> or <keyword id="1660069" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Canon-DSLR">Canon DSLR</keyword>, even the high-end ones capturing mind numbing detail,” Parhawk says. Despite having most details well in place, the team was white balancing continuously with a grey card. The purpose of that was to keep a check, even in that controlled environment, just to make sure there are no errors or accidental colour casts. “It helps massively in post-production to spot the right colours,” pointed out film editor Ralph Fernandes who was collaborating with Parhawk on this project. So while the team was working with the equipment they use on a daily basis for all their other photography work, what if they could pick something better? Parhawk chose to pick a large format camera from my money-is-no-object list. A large format technical camera would have been incredible but they are frighteningly expensive. They can cost you more than $30,000 (nearly Rs 20 lakh). “What you are looking at repeating the same process that photographers do with Sinars and Linhofs. You are trying to capture the largest amount of available detail in a RAW file,” Parhawk said. “For older stuff and art restoration stuff, they also use ultraviolet and infrared cameras to capture details that are beyond the visual spectrum. It helps in recreating it. And that is specialised gear. There are paintings they don’t even expose to light because they may be fragile or just very, very valuable. They are digitised in dark rooms with infrared and UV camera systems,” Fernandes pointed out. “The lighting equipment we are using right now is not the highest possible grade. That would be the Balcar or the Briese - these are high-grade lighting systems. They are awesome, but they are very, very expensive,” Parhawk said speaking about the lights he would have liked to use if he could afford it. In the Balcar or the Briese the wavelengths are more colour correct and the light modifiers are better, meaning the image being shot would have been more perfect. But like most other high-end equipment, they cost many arms and many legs, even for Indian pro photographers. The sky is the limit when it comes to equipment that could have been used, but for now, the medium format pulled its weight perfectly. Had the team used the high-end equipment suited best for the task, the costs would have shot up by a few crores at least. They pulled out incredible details and near-perfect colours in a fraction of the cost (Rs 9 lakh for all the equipment, give or take a few thousand). At the end of the day, what you are looking for is clarity of image, which means good lensing, good colour depth for restoration purposes, accurate saturation and well-controlled light that reproduces the textures and colours as faithfully as possible - for that, the setup was well suited. The exhibition, titled ‘Rahul Sankrityayana’s Antiquity Collection,’ is as magical as the name promises. Hosted in collaboration with the <keyword id="53042" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Patna-museum">Patna Museum</keyword> and curated by Sankrityayana’s daughter Jaya Parhawk, it is <a href="http://ignca.gov.in/invitations/14_09_2018_Conference_on_Rahul_Sankrityayan_Invite.pdf">on display till 9 April</a>.

What it takes to digitise artwork that is almost 4 centuries old

Patna, As many as 354 suspected cases of <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword> infection have been identified in Bihar, of which 113 patients were released from isolation after 14-day quarantine. No confirmed positive case has been reported so far in the eastern state. A <keyword id="48418" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Health-department">Health Department</keyword> official said on Thursday that from January 15 to March 18, 354 persons returned from coronavirus-infected countries to Bihar and were placed under surveillance immediately. He said that people arriving at the Patna and Gaya airports were made to undergo thermal screening. So far, more than 19,000 passengers have been screened at both airports. He said that samples taken from 72 persons suspected to carry the virus have been tested so far, but not a single positive case found in Bihar. According to the department, people coming from Nepal were being monitored and screened at 49 places in seven districts of Bihar adjoining Nepal. According to the official, till now more than two lakh people have been screened at these places, but not a single positive case has been reported. On Wednesday, the Health Department ordered for the closire of shopping malls, gyms, swimming pools and spas in all districts of Bihar till March 31. According to the directive, gatherings of more than 50 persons has been stopped forthwith, except marriage functions. All cinemas have also been ordered shut till March 31. The state government has also closed schools, colleges, universities, parks, zoos and museums till the month-end. All government and private hostels in the state have also been closed. --IANS hindi-dpb/tsb

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Explore one of the oldest Indian city: 10 must-visit places in Patna with friends

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What it takes to digitise artwork that is almost 4 centuries old

Jhinuk Sen

More than 350 suspected coronavirus cases in Bihar, none positive yet

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