 "Ruchira Ghose")
In the nineties, the Crafts Museum used to be a dusty, damp place with a few sorry-looking craft specimens floating around. When I walk in today, I see beautifully embellished exteriors, a swanky shop and a cafe that everyone seems to be talking about. Much of this transformation has been thanks to a diminutive sari-clad woman who's an economist, not a bureaucrat by training - Ruchira Ghose, chairperson of Crafts Museum, my guest for lunch today. We decide to meet in the Crafts Museum's Cafe Lota. It's a garden-like outdoor space that encourages lingering, and I have been dying to try out its new menu.
Ghose arrives punctually, cool in her cotton handloom sari. We order some nimbu paani (the menu offers only desi decoctions, and they all sound interesting) as she starts by telling me about herself. "I began my career as an economist," she says, "but years later, after I'd published my book Behaviour of Industrial Prices in India in 1989 and my child was born, I decided to switch fields," she says. Refreshingly, my lunch guest is perfectly at ease talking about how she took a hiatus from work, choosing to be a stay-at-home mum while her daughter was growing up. "When I returned to work, I didn't want to involve myself with abstract research any more. I had an urge to be able to touch the fruit of my labour, to do things with more tangible outcomes," says Ghose. Her stint with the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage or Intach in 1994 marked the beginning of her work in the crafts sector. "Early on, I appreciated the immensity of the Indian handicraft tradition, and the crying need to not only showcase it, but for people like us who were invested in the sector and passionate about it, to promote it," she says.
The menus arrive. Ghose is a small eater and isn't very hungry. So we decide to share a raw papaya salad for starters and a plate of mango prawn curry served with red rice for the main course. Our server brings the starter, as well as a delicious complimentary salad of cucumber and coconut. Meanwhile, she tells me how Crafts Museum happened to her in 2009. Ghose had been researching Sanjhi, the art of hand cutting designs on paper typical of Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. "I was asked to revamp the museum, and without understanding much of what it entailed, I accepted!" she laughs. "As an outsider, I didn't know how the bureaucracy worked. If I had, perhaps I wouldn't have jumped in with such enthusiasm!" Ghose's job was cut out for her from the minute she arrived in the museum. The museum had 33,000 objects, of which only 3,000 were on display. Many were stored higgledy-piggledy in iron cupboards, unmarked and unclassified. "Much effort went into organising the collection, putting things in proper order. A lot of housekeeping. Now we are working hard on digitising the collection," she recounts. Frustratingly for her, she had little autonomy and it proved impossible for her to implement any new ideas. Six months down the line, she famously resigned.
Eventually, Ghose was asked to return in 2010. She assented on the condition that she was given greater powers and autonomy. "This was before the Commonwealth Games and the government was keen to see at least the shop and cafe refurbished in the museum," she says. "We conceptualised the cafe as being unpretentious, aesthetic, wholesome and affordable." This proved to be a tall order since many catering applicants were put off by the lack of air-conditioning and the ban on alcohol there. Many applicants and tedious tenders later, Ghose was able to spearhead the design and menu of a cafe that has become one of foodie Delhi's best-kept secrets. Even today, with humidity levels soaring way past the levels polite society steps out in, the place is packed. Not a single table is empty on a weekday lunch, no mean feat in a city spoilt for eating-out choices.
At this rather appropriate juncture, our prawn curry arrives, tangy with raw mango and served with red rice. We dig in (she sparingly, me with lots more enthusiasm) as I tell her I can't think of another cafe in Delhi with such an imaginative and, horror of horrors, healthy menu. She looks around with evident satisfaction and says diffidently: "We've just been very lucky with our choice of caterers..."
It seems to me to have been more hard work than luck, I comment. She assents. "When I arrived here, every gallery in the museum had leaky ceilings and damp walls. It's been a huge task just renovating them," she says. Towards the fag end of a delicious meal, Ghose talks about the need for craftspeople to get more respect for their work, for this alone will decide the longevity of their craft. "You know, when I arrived first at the museum, craftspeople's residential quarters were in a shambles. The bathrooms were terrible, the ceilings were discoloured with seepage and everything smelled," she recounts. The renovation of Shilp Kuteer, which today houses the craftspeople, showcases the importance Ghose places on according craftspeople with the respect they deserve. Not only does it have bright living spaces (several kinds, even for families), it also has public areas for researchers and interns to work alongside the craftspeople. "Now that the residential quarters are ready, we plan on organising more workshops that bring craftspeople together with designers. This could stimulate their creativity and keep their craft continuously evolving," she says.
It's time to order dessert. Ghose begs off, but I indulge my sweet tooth with Cafe Lota's signature Bhapa Doi cheesecake. It is worth breaking all diet plans, I muse as I dig into its creamy sweetness. Meanwhile, Ghose tells me about the textile gallery, which she's currently got her hands full with. "We're considering alternative approaches to our displays. One approach could be to organise the stunning collection of textile that the museum has, under three heads - those constructed pre-loom (like ikat), on-loom (like brocade) and post-loom (all embroidered and embellished textiles)," she says. It's a novel way of classification, I comment. "It is important to consider ways of displaying the collection that add interest and meaning," she says. "Now we are also researching newer ways to disseminate information about crafts. Visitors to the museum shop, for instance, often ask how a certain craft product has been made..." she says. "That's why we're working on newer technologies like smartphone apps and screens playing films on a loop to engage with them." All her plans, she estimates, will take a good three years before they materialise. Frustratingly, Ghose's tenure ends next year.
I ask, as she gets up to leave, where she'd like to see the Crafts Museum five years from now, knowing that she may not be around to spearhead it. "Of course, I want to see all the galleries up and running by then," she smiles. "I'd like for there to be a place where children can touch and feel craft objects. That's the best way to get them to engage with craft. Most of all, I would like to see many more performances in all its open spaces and the museum buzzing with activity. We have so much in our country, that we sometimes take it for granted. That's what we need to change..."
