Restoring the magic of Jadu Ghar

Asia's oldest museum, the Indian Museum in Kolkata, is back with its collection of rare artefacts after undergoing a Rs 100-cr makeover

The Indian Museum or the Jadu Ghar, as it is popularly known, threw open its doors recently after a brief spell of renovation. The oldest museum in Asia, situated in Kolkata's Park Street, has been out of bounds for the public since last September. However, the Rs 100-crore renovation and restoration project has been on since much earlier - it has taken two long years as the task was not an easy one. The objective of the project has been to give the museum a complete makeover, as stated by MK Narayanan, West Bengal governor and chairman of the museum's board of trustees, at the bicentenary celebration on February 2.

"The Indian Museum had come to be seen as old, dusty, boring and barely relevant. Footfalls had declined and compared unfavourably with the numbers visiting museums elsewhere, especially in the West," Narayanan had put it quite bluntly at the event. "Leading critics in the West felt that not only was the collection not well maintained but the museum had lost its stuffing."

The white palatial building of the museum still carries a whiff of the colonial era. It was founded by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1814. The idea took germ in 1796 when the members of the society were contemplating the creation of a place where both natural and manmade objects could be preserved. With the government sanctioning space in the Chowringhee-Park Street area to the society, the idea of the museum became a reality, with Danish botanist Nathaniel Wallich becoming its founder-curator.

The museum boasts of an enviable collection. Its many treasures include the four-lion capital of the Ashoka Pillar, Buddha's ashes, an Egyptian mummy, a collection of meteorites, fossilised remains of prehistoric animals and a fine art collection. As one enters the archaeology gallery, a panorama of Indian sculptures from the Buddhist, Brahmanical and Jain schools greets the eye. One mustn't miss the magnificent remains of the railings and gateway of the Buddhist stupa discovered in 1873 from Bharhut near Satna, Madhya Pradesh.

The coins gallery is a numismatist's delight as it has more than 50,000 coins. Collected from various parts of the subcontinent, these coins belong to periods from the 5th century BC to the 21st century.

This mammoth renovation project has been undertaken by the National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) with funding by the Union ministry of culture. "Seven galleries have been given a face-lift. These include Bharhut, Gandhar, coins, archaeology, textile, decorative art and human evolution galleries. The Ashutosh Birth Centenary Hall and auditorium have also been renovated," says Sayan Bhattacharya, the museum's education officer. The number of CCTVs in the museum has been increased to bring the entire building under surveillance. The effectiveness of the arrangement became evident recently when the camera footage allowed the staff to nab three youngsters who were collecting money unlawfully from foreign tourists.

The display has also undergone a makeover with a chronology of dates and events, and scientific data accompanying the objects. The details have been explained in English, Bengali and Hindi to cater to a multi-lingual audience.

If you venture to the gallery of human evolution, you will notice a touch-screen kiosk at the end that chronicles the evolution process. It features chapters on the geological time scale, humans in the animal kingdom, the process leading up to the erect posture, a detailed analysis of the DNA, et cetera. The kiosk is currently functional only in English, but will soon feature the presentation in Hindi and Bengali as well. It not only helps visitors understand the concept better, but also attracts children to the display. "Children constitute a large part of the visitors to the museum. They usually have a short attention span and get restless after sometime. Something like this would attract their interest," says an employee in charge of the archaeology gallery. Such kiosks could come up in other galleries in the future.