Where Have All the Bards Gone?

Neha Zooni Tickoo

4th December 2017

 Recently, on 28th November 2017, I attended the famed theatrical production ‘Manganiyar Seduction’ directed by Roysten Abel at the IGNCA New Delhi open air lawns almost after a decade it was first staged. Since 2012, I have only read about this spectacular, mammoth production of Abel from various sources describing especially the scenographic dexterity employed in the placement of musicians on the stage. And well deservedly, it was spell-binding to see the acoustics visualized as an orchestra, complete with a conductor facing the musicians, playing the stimulating castanets throughout. However, it was while a year or so ago, I was researching about the Langas and Manganiyars of Barmer- Rajasthan for a senior musico-ethnographer, that I came across the profiles of some of these ‘star performers’, mostly a muslim community and their traditional and richly syncretic repertoire, their folklore and knowledge systems. It emerged that some of these Langa/Manganiyar performers are quite sought after and get to travel far and wide taking their music and songs to lovers of music across ages and lands, all the while playing the traditional “folk” tune, ascribing well to the confines of the Other. Meanwhile, even though their songs and stories remain same to a large extent, the patrons have changed, from traditional jajmans for whom they serve as bards and genealogists, to State and private sponsors.

This piece that I write here is not going to be a review of the performance and neither does it serve to be an overarching picture of the Manganiyar music and culture. What I intend here is to inform the students and scholars of culture of those specific events that help me read this performance in the context of the time we live in. Can one possibly read any piece of art bereft of it’s placement in the socio-political context? Perhaps one can, because art defies singularity and it’s multitudes wouldn’t fit one blog-post. Nonetheless, the case here is different and i assure the reader that had it not been for the seemingly unrelated events in recent past and the history surrounding the Manganiyars, I wouldn’t have been inclined to write this piece.

The post-independence modern Indian culture industry is not as innocent as we would like to believe it is. It has had deeper than imagined ties with the state of economy and depend immensely on the nod of ruling governments. With the set-up of Sangeet Natak Akademy in 1950s, the Indian nation affirmed their identity by relocating the artisans and artists 'languishing' in the peripheries of remote India to the metro cities, where these styles were 'prosceniumized or museumized'. It became very clear that the project of modernity in the Indian milieu would remain unfulfilled without carrying forward the baton declaring an unwavering affiliation to the “roots”. However as a result, the present-day global indian cultural identity is a curious and confrontational mix of tradition and modernity, often at loggerheads and yet seemingly completing each other at other moments. Therefore, when one looks at the decorated star performers I mentioned above, the picture tends to become, if I may say, more rational, systemic and less sentimental.  Here, I want to warn, a fierce one-tracked critique of inter-culturalism and modernity is no longer helpful too, but that is reserved for another blog post, another day…

Roysten’s Manganyar Seduction with it’s structural dependency on a very western ‘orchestra-conductor’ style, faltered very little during the performance (ironically Roysten boasts of a recent lawsuit he won affirming his copyright on the particular stage set design, even though the whole production rides on the shoulders of “folk” music which fails the concept of copyright itself)[1]. Apart from this, it massively falters especially during it’s encore. It seems very unlikely that Roysten Abel who has spent good part of last decade performing with the Manganiyar artists, would not be aware of the recent killing of a local Manganyar singer in Jaialmer by his Hindu patron, allegedly for not playing well enough according to rituals. The story was covered widely but no respite came to the family of the deceased, even more so to the community who had to flee the village fearing backlash[2]. I understand that public amnesia is a thing well founded but i refuse to trust that same is the case with an artist like Roysten Abel who obviously has had a deeper connect with the community over the last decade. If anything, the least of his responsibility was to condemn the murder and be proactive in preventing the community to leave the village. Instead, during the curtain call introducing each musician , he commanded that the encore be dedicated to the sole Hindu Manganyar as the rest of Muslim ones play for him.

To save himself this embarrassment, he could have also respectfully asked the encore be dedicated the senior most artist of the troupe who happened to be the same Hindu musician. I cannot say who else found this post performance gimmick objectionable other than a few of us culture studies scholars who found this unexpected quip by the director somewhat offensive to the community of Manganyar musicians, upon whom he has driven his production. To add to the facts, senior BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi inaugurated the event and i suspect that this gimmick was intended to appease the false Hindu pride of culture ministry at helm. I wonder how humiliating it was for the musicians to perform this forced gesture, or is it that they comply out of dependence on an English speaking urban theatre director, or there is some deep-seated hierarchy at play? We often have debated if the subaltern can speak for themselves, but that is a far cry since the subaltern is not even allowed to perform or sing for themselves.

This incident serves as the most recent example of well-known theatre artists, performers pandering to the tune of the dictators at the top, and effectively going un-noticed by the larger theatre and art loving community. Eventually, nothing new has been repeated, history under fascism is replete with such instances. But this needs to be reiterated with each occurrence of such velvet-tongued negligence. However it also brings forth the fact that perhaps the performance and the performative is happening at so many layers and levels, to please the one who is pulling the strings. What we as scholars need to create is a pandemonium before these strings become a noose and gag all the sullen voices.

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[1] https://spicyip.com/2017/09/ip-protection-for-stage-directions-throwing-some-light-on-the-stage-of-the-manganiyar-seduction.html

[2] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/manganiyar-singer-thrashed-to-death-in-rajasthan-village-families-flee-homes/article19839108.ece

The Coup will be Live and then Hyper-linked : Amitesh Grover, Shaunak Sen, Arnika Ahldag in Conversation

Notes: The Coup will be Live and then Hyper-linked : Amitesh Grover, Shaunak Sen, Arnika Ahldag in Conversation.

August 2016

image courtesy: KNMA

“You will not be able to stay home, brother.

You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.

You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and

skip out for beer during commercials,

Because the revolution will not be televised.”

--Opening lines from the song ‘The Revolution will not be Televised’ by Gil Scot-Heron, 1970.

One tends to realize that lines between the virtual and the real have long been blurred when a military state not only crackdowns into the houses of the protesting entities but also upon their web based presence to gag their voice. In such dynamics, can the components of dissent be pre-imagined? Perhaps imagining a coup will be to imagine of it in negation: of what it will not be. Hence, the aforementioned lines from the famous prophetic song. But instead of being caught in the binaries of what an erupting revolution ought ‘to be’ and what it ‘not to be’, can art perhaps propose an idea of coup emanating from the everyday?

Fourth in the series of ‘Invitation to a Coup’, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Saket hosted collaborating artists Amitesh Grover, Shaunak Sen and Arnika Ahldag on 4^th August 2016 in conversation with Akansha Rastogi. While Amitesh is a performance maker with a background in theatre, Arnika belongs to visual arts and Shaunak is a film-maker.  They desist from being clubbed as an artist-collective yet maintain that their projects take place primarily in the spirit of “friendship”. They have worked together on a few projects, namely Encounters 6134 (2014), Downtime (2014), and Notes on Mourning (2015). Less of a conversation, they chose a style of presentation that did not delve into doling out particulars about their collaborative projects. Instead, the evening was subsumed in a churning tied to the algorithmic format of hyperlinks like “Lies”, “Gossip”, “Speculate”, “Document”, “Experts” etc. Three of them took turns to speak about the projects whose subjects varied from mediated encounters, sleep economies, and mourning. They began the evening by highlighting the very paradox inherent in the semantics of ‘Invitation’, an unlikely protocol that aims towards a quintessential Coup. Therefore, they go on to insist that “this is not a talk and we are not a collective”.

Amitesh chose to emphasize on the same by reciting a poem by Octavio Paz called ‘Draft of Shadows’(1975). From the lengthy poem that is soaked in free-verse, Amitesh chose a few lines, one of which is: “the water is for reading, not drinking”.  After this interval, the baton is passed on to Shaunak as he holds up a sheet of paper announcing “ Lies”, hinting towards how a city forges a culture of uttering fabricated stories emphasizing social standing and material position. He adds that he is also fascinated by shape-shifters, tricksters and con-artists who according to him “use the G-spot of desire or love of people” to make ends meet. He recalled that in his film Cities of Sleep, (https://citiesofsleep.com/) has a statement where one of the experts, Ranjit claims that “if you want to know the social status of a person, just watch how they sleep.” The film spans many such shape-shifting characters existing in spaces that are make-shift.

The next hyper-link raised and explored was “Truth”. Amitesh confessed about the inability to authenticate the amount of truth, when he is working with testimonies and encounters with his ‘experts’. He maintains that “over-rehearsing can often alter the act of recounting”. He tells us that he has to constantly navigate between when and where to stop in accepting the narrations. Progressing organically from ‘truth’, Arnika Ahldag brandishes the hyperlink announcing “Gossip”. She reinstates that gossip claims of no truth, although it may appear wearing the garb of it.  Flying on the tangent of Gossip, Amitesh suggests “Speculate”, tying it along with ‘Event’ to the major thread of ‘Performance’. For Amitesh performance is something like the childhood memory of playing with small dolls and figurines locked inside alone a room.  Adding another dimension to the strand of Speculation, Akansha mentions of parables, say of the Roman poet Horace, which contain the inherent capacity to be pondered and speculated forever.

Moving ahead from “speculation” to “affect”, Shaunak talks about the trend of ‘cell-phone novels’ which are seemingly a rage in Japan. These ‘novelists’ fall in the age group of 16-35 and do this as a temporary job. Shaunak calls them the affective or emotional labour and constitute of a political public in the “digital domain”. Picking up the thread from the digital to the real, Amitesh mentions Pokemon Go, the most recent location based augmented reality game which has now begun to raise policing, piracy and surveillance issues. He claims that “this game has bypassed the world, where we are being mediated by pixies”. Making a reference to Baudrillard’s ‘Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared’, Amitesh points out that the post-modern world and it being irreversibly inebriated with reality which is only virtual, with simulacrum which is controlled, there is disappearance of the real and the tangible. Amitesh offers encountering the real and the tangible through his recent work called ‘Notes on Mourning’, a ritual based performance series where professional mourner Jayalaxmi, from Tamil Nadu performs the mourning session in front of an invited audience. Amitesh recalls the process she undergoes to begin mourning, the affect for which may stem from the ambiguity of her personal sadness and that of her client’s. He adds that even though the ritual is meant to be performed live, there are already digitally recorded CDs of the same being sold in the market for the times Jayalaxami cant be available. This adds to the cycle where simulacrum surpasses reality, disrupting attention spans and disembarking from memory registers. Shaunak pulls out the next hyperlink announcing ‘Attention’ where he recounts how it has become a scarce resource in the age of internet where ‘GIFs’ and incessant loops rule as they bank heavily on what he calls, “attention economy”.

Recalling an earlier project ‘Downtime’, Amitesh confessed that he was keen on knowing if one could look at sleep in and as a performance. In this project, he invited participants to engage in monitored sleep sessions. He pointed out that there are also “sleep-economies” that exist, and how it has been capitalized upon and there are retailers who sell and survive on it. While researching for the film ‘Cities of Sleep’ Shaunak, Arnica and Amitesh had stumbled upon Lohia Pull of Delhi and the agents like one Ranjit, selling sleep. This discussion brought out connecting nodes like Jayalaxami and Ranjit as ‘Experts’, which was also the next hyperlink to be raised by Arnika. This was explored further by Shaunak in how sleep can be understood also as a social construct making a mention of the 1925 founded Brotherhood of Sleeping Car-Poerters in Chicago which went on to become the first charter led by African-Americans to be a part of the American Federation of Labour.  

Talking about sleep-economies, Amitesh informs the audience of the most expensive mattresses in the world and how later the showroom for these mattresses was converted to a performance space for an invited audience. He points out that in such an intervention there was a "collapse" of the actor and the spectator and the interesting uncertainty emerged in the matters of archiving the value of what the performance-intervention has achieved. This not only subverts the idea of a performance space but also relinquishes the desire to monetise on the given experience of the intervention, hence defying value generating economies. 

At this juncture, the discussion was thrown open and the audiences responded by adding their own references. People like theatre artist Maya Krishna Rao, art historian Kavita Singh, Prof. Shukla Sawant, performance artist Inder Salim etc were among the attendees of the conversation. Akansha, made a mention of the Precarious Worker's Brigade based in the UK and which promulgates "tools" that include 'Bust your Boss' cards, 'Training for Exploitation Resource Pack' and also boast of a 'People's Tribunal on Precarity'. She also refers to C A Conrad's political “Soma-tic poems” like 'A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon'. Paribartana Mohanty, an artist present among the audience wanted the speakers to respond on the dichotomy of the labourers and the construct of 'experts' as explained by them. More specifically, he was curious to know whether this 'expert' sleeps, if at all.  To this, Amitesh responded in the context of how sleep has no longer remained natural and has been made industrial by conditioning it to the strict 8-hour sleep patterns. Asiya Islam, a student of Gender Studies present among the audience wanted to know if their collective work has in any way included a feminist perspective especially with regards to women laborers, their work hours and sleep. The reference she picked up was from the famous scholar Silvia Federici’s exponential work on Capital accumulation, self-ownership, labour power and its drastically taming effects on the psycho-physiological health of a population. Amitesh responded by admitting that a typically feminist trope was not applied in any of the previous works but perhaps the work Notes on Mourning, having Jayalaxmi as the Expert, one could tentatively look at the role of women in traditional mourning rituals as the active labor force. Another audience member was prompt to ask about the worker’s body at leisure-time, the time assigned for hobbies and creative indulgences, from a rickshaw puller’s to a corporate employee in contrast of the cityscape traversing through rush-hours. Shaunak expressed keen interest to work on these issues in near future along with exploring further on ‘Distractions’ as another hyperlink, to look forward to.

Making a Case for ‘Wonder-ment’. In Conversation with Rohini Devasher

A report by neha zooni tickoo

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”. – Oscar Wilde

What happens when an artist thinks of gazing at stars? How commonplace or profound such an exercise can be? On 20^th July 2016, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Saket hosted yet another ‘coup’ that largely required one of contemplating about the sky. The guest artist on this day was Rohini Devasher, a visual artist and an amateur astronomer who dabbles in looking, seeing, observing the “physicality of field and sight”. Following suit, the conversation begins with not much talking but allowing the viewers to hear recorded sound piece, called ‘Shadow Walkers’. The sound piece containing solely the testimonies of people witnessing a full solar eclipse, allegorically decoded the meanings of “eclipse” where only periphery of their perceptions and observations are visible through the medium of sound.

What was rather stimulating in the most subtle ways was the deliberate attempt to set up the seating arrangement for the evening where the audience had to alternate their gazes from their left to right, and vice versa. The ‘site’, was shifted to the peripheries of the sight of the audience, thus decentralizing the very vantage point. The projected images of Rohini’s artworks on opposing parallel walls in a dimly lit hall seemed like a set-up in horizon-gazing in the dark.  

At the end of the audio piece, Rohini insists that she deals with “ ‘sight’ as the physical site”. Clearly her methodology of art making outlines a phenomenological influence. To heighten the phenomenological experience she admits to be using advanced tools to “allow the situation to look like what it eventually becomes”. The end result, she maintains stems entirely from “chance” since it is collective perception devoid of becoming something definitive. Here she recalls Lorraine Daston, a historian of Science, and the author of Wonder and the Order of Nature, and paraphrases it’s central thought as “strange objects, strangely seen by strange people”.  

In line, she also expounds on how in the history of human explorations, she identifies her field notes as “recordings” and not “Records”. She distinguishes among both by saying that the former allows the data to be raw and which is not formalized and the latter aims to delineate a pre-defined truth. The “recording” for her is then brings articulation of Record which allows speculation and gives scope to the “what-if”. Further she tells us that ‘speculation’ comes from the root word ‘specular’ which means the mirror, again leading us towards her focus on sight as the core instrument, medium and the product.

Talking about her Monographed Geographies (2013), a series of hybrid prints, she attempts reimagining the physical terrain superimposed by patterns overlaid by pencil drawings. She achieves similar distortions in her other work called Atmospheres (2015), a single channel video shot from a fish-eye lens of the care sky which becomes her canvass while giving an impression that the sky itself becomes the blue planet that Earth is. This artwork potently attempts to draw the gaze inwards by looking at the bleakness of the sky, and challenging the notion of the anthroposcene. Helioblue (2015), a single channel long durational video piece, also traces her piercing gaze from down-top orientation, measuring the blue-ness of the sky itself. Moving further in the discussion, there is also the mention of Paul Virilio, the French culture theorist of speed, technology and wars, and the author of Open Sky in the context of describing the constantly altering vantage points of a parachutist in a free fall from the sky. 

Shifting her gaze from the sky, she treads back to the horizontal surfaces of the blue oceans, she talks of her work based in the UK called Shivering Sands (2016) – part of the show Archaeologies of the Future, a single channel film infused with a contrapuntal narrative of unused and rusting British watch towers installed at the time of World War II to foresee any naval attacks; and then of the expanses of the ocean, using again the phenomenological yet poetic reading of it. The work demarcates an understanding and speculation of structures that have been made to appear strange given the expanse of their time and space of existence. 

Finally she shows us the work where she images the world as a green planet, and not just blue. Terrasphere (2015) is a series of images shot of miniature ecosystems covered in glass that uniquely give an impression of a green plant, complete with its flora and the atmosphere. She states that here “the subject of study is the surface of the object”. At this point Akansha added that Rohini’s work lingers on the heterotopic subversion of imagining sight as as an alternative space. In view of this particular work by Rohini, she recalls the work of a Puerto Rican artist, Raphael Martinez Ortiz had installed a miniature of Amazon rain forest inside the museum. The conversation continued towards, how the particular exhibition was like a container of the “viewpoints of moisture”. It is rather intriguing that with Rohini’s object of enquiry being sight, in Terrasphere, the same becomes invisible vapors of moisture condensed underneath the glass surface. 

At this moment the discussion was thrown open to the audience. One of the members pointed out that in the sound piece ‘Shadow Walkers’, since one is bereft of the sight, the audio piece is basically a recording of phenomenologically enhanced responses, emerging as a conscious act in wonder making. Ms. Roobina Karode, Director KNMA, noted the act of wonder making in the event of weather forecast and news dissemination. At this juncture, acclaimed art critic and curator Geeta Kapur ruminated about the origins of the term ‘spectacular’ rooted in philosophy and arising from ‘specular’ , meaning – mirror and eventually leading to the tangent of Lacanian psychoanalytic and then finally towards Rohini’s  phenomenological position conceptually. The discursive angle of her interjection was to contextualize Rohini’s play with sight and act of seeing to immediate materiality and experientiality that one gets encountered with in her work. Artist Vivan Sundaram present among the audience wanted to know if Rohini envisages the materiality of sight to be in constant entropy. To this she replied that perhaps it is so.  However, she confessed that what worries her is a loss of wonder. Having had acquainted herself with the anthroposcene, she gradually mediates between the undeniable recklessness of the human species with the environment and the urgency to sustain the unique capacity of wonder, curiosity, ingenuity and phantasmagoria of the human mind. 

When the Simulacrum Ceases to Be

image courtesy: KNMA

A report by neha zooni tickoo

On 2^nd July 2016, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Saket was host to an evening contemplating a coup. “Invitation for a Coup” emerged from the perplexing blackout “performed” on the TV news channel by anchor and journalist Ravish Kumar in order “to advocate doubt as a method” against the cacophony of these times. Ravish Kumar’s radical intervention aired in the living rooms of urban India was complete with abject darkness of the TV screen and spoke of a despairingly transformed ruthless space of contemporary media politics. Ravish’s blackout portrayed a picture of withdrawal where the simulacrum frenzy has ceased to be.

Without taking the title of the conversation as a misnomer, the evening began as a somber setting accompanied with a few words written on a whiteboard: ‘NEGATION’, ‘REDACTION’, ‘ERASURE’, and ‘POSSIBILITY’. The audience was prodded to delve deep into the words by way of an engagement with the “coup”. The question looming large was (and will perhaps continue to be): “How would art create a coup like situation in these politically charged times?” What is it about these words that could provide towards an artist’s repertoire in the ongoing revolution(s). The ensuing discussion, however, contemplated negation as a trope in the toolbox of political art, with or without its metaphysical gear on.

Sreshta Rit Premnath, the guest artist in the conversation, is the co-founder of Shifter magazine, (http://shifter-magazine.com/about) and is an Assistant Professor at Parsons, New York. In light of his past work, he spoke of quintessential absences in the world around him and his art. He spoke of cargo ships being captured by pirates and their absences thereafter; his fancy for the emptiness of the bright green backgrounds used to digitally manipulate images on TV screen and apply VFX in cinematography; and of peoples made “invisible” and rendered “unintentional”. Ruminating poetically through his artworks from 2008 onwards, with special reference to ‘Zero Knot’ (2010), he recited his poem while a slide show of his art work shot from different angles played on the screen. A few lines from the poem were as follows:

“What I can’t see is withdrawn,

What I don’t know is withdrawn,

Can a thing withdraw from itself?

When I shift my attention,

Who withdraws,

You or me?

A people is silenced from whom?”

These lines permeate the sphere of the metaphysical on several levels where the being of his artwork and its elimination in parts fulfill the purpose. At this point, Akansha intervened with a mention of French linguist Maurice Blanchot, whose forte was the style of ‘recit’ which harbours heavily on the incoherence and paradoxical virtues of a narrative. This style of narration is against linearity and basically straddles in the anti-genre. Perhaps Premnath’s work is in attempt of something similar.  

Strips of green and blue colours frequent Premnath’s works in minimalist ways such that they represent “zero colour” for him. He said, “between 0 and infinity, we find 1. There is no withdrawal, yet everything is taken away”.  He maintained that he allows political and metaphysical thinking to permeate into each other in his art. He spoke of  coup through the lens of ‘possibilities’ and ‘probabilities’. In his work, the trope of negation is seen in the outlined cutouts of popular leaders, rendering the figure invisible through the tarpaulin-ed cover-ups. He attempts to dissect the metaphysics of negation by speaking of more works from 201o-2016 – ‘Pole’ (2012), ‘Folding Rulers’ (2012), ‘Sand Box’, (2010), and ‘To Destroy is Also to Make Visible’ (2016) all deal with real life events in the course of history like the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and the ravaged Syrian cityscape.

At this juncture, Akansha spoke about recent events of dissent in the history of university student protests in India: one from the controversial exhibition of queer artist Chandra Mohan at Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University, Gujarat and the other from Sarojini Naidu Institute of Arts & Communication, University of Hyderabad. In her research, she has been able to look at negation implemented by the state agents and in the latter case by the artists themselves to evoke a sentiment of political dissent. It thus begins to become apparent how the trope of negation achieved through the elimination of the artwork becomes something bigger as an artistic and political statement.

In his work ‘I Will Die When I Stop Building’ (2012), Premnath visually narrates the story of Ramaiya, the famous builder from Bengaluru who is known to rebuild buildings he was commissioned in the past. He pointed out that it is the death drive that animates the urban development scenario and the passion which guides it. In another work titled ‘Eclipse’ (2010), photographs of the solar eclipse ring clearly demonstrate the desire to shoot the hidden Sun, showing only its ring, making invisible the object of desire itself. Other works he mentioned were ‘Sleeping Dog’ (2013), ‘Plot’ (2014-15) and ‘Recto-Verso’ (2016). ‘Recto-Verso’ is a stunning work that delineates the necessity to understand the hidden, or the “negated Other”. It tells the story of hazards for the hired labourers, many of whom reportedly fall off tall bunk beds in sleep and die. Tightrope walking between sleep and death, tied to streams of sub-consciousness, ‘Sleeping Dog’ (2013), the video work is constituted of clips of street dogs in deep sleep on busy roads as the world passes by.

As the conversation drew to a close, the interactive session with the audience raised several interesting questions. Noted photographer Ram Rahman pondered about the poetic-text accompanying the art work in the exhibition space to which Premnath responded by saying that his artwork is usually showcased without the text recitation but, at other times, he provides the text to be read alongside. Art critic Hemant Sareen pointed out the un-readability of the conceptual aspect of Premnath’s work and its probability to be read as eccentric. An interesting input about the trope of negation came from the biological perspective when a member of the audience pointed out that it is ‘decapitation’ in biological terms that leads to growth in many ways and means. A young student in the audience was keen to know where ‘negation is placed’, citing the specific example of self-immolation by Tibetan protestors. Another member of the audience, a dancer, pointed towards the performative, ritual aspect in the very occurrence of an actual political coup, and sought a discussion on the same in relation to the artistic, metaphysical or conceptual value associated to Premnath’s art practice.

Hinged to the most immediate crises in the political scenario of the world and for the artist to address and counter it, the conversation successfully brought along fervor in the gathering.

Meeras Mahal Museum, Sopore, Jammu and Kashmir: An Overview

(As part of Research and Documentation Project of Meeras Mahal Museum undertaken by India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore)

“The Archive, if we want to know what that will have meant, we will only in times to come, not tomorrow, but in times to come.”

-         Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever, 1995.

As we ascends towards our destination, the town of Sopore, we cross a flyover that is being built for the last 25 years, so i am informed, and the completion of which is still nowhere in sight. We take a detour because some roads have been kept blocked by protesting stone pelters. The local residents are obliged to follow the changes in solidarity. Witnessing such a state of affairs does not astonish me. There is a sense of dispassionate nonchalance that pervades the day to day lives of the residents of Sopore, but which is at all times rife with an air of political unrest. The imaginations or expectations of the Kashmiri people have ridden high especially on those living on the peripheries, further from the capital city of Srinagar, especially on those from towns like Sopore etc. Peripheries here can be understood not just as a metaphor but also decentralized execution of the civilian’s will as well as popular dissent. While Srinagar remains the centre for matters of governmental or cultural nature, it is the towns like Sopore where they draw their grassroot will from.   

Talking about the imagination, the anticipations and the expectations of Kashmiri people is a tricky task. It is hugely pregnant with desire for a future which they will have claimed as their own. However, in present day discourses pertaining to anticipating such a future, there has been very little and fragile speculation over the units that may build such a composite future. The foretasted quote by Derrida is apt atleast in the cultural context and directly hits the nail on its head by reaffirming that a cultural archive is relevant more for the “question of future” rather than that of the past. The role of an archive in form of a collection of ethnographic artifacts is something that may or may not validate a rich past but can essentially educate and expose the present towards an informed future. In this respect, a town like Sopore has been able to nurture a nest of heritage, fostering it by the name of Meeras Mahal Museum, ceaselessly hoping to uphold a pedestal of tolerance, plurality and unshakable belief in Kashmir.       

Origin of Sopore Town

In the district of Baramulla of Kashmir valley, the town of Sopore stands distinguished. It is a quiet and prosperous town which is also popular as the apple orchard of India as it is run by the business class operating the largest fruit market around. However, the story of it’s wealth and prosperity is not a new one. Originally Sopore was known as Suyyapore dedicated to a very intelligent, able and successful policy maker and engineer Suyya. Suyya was part of the royal court of King Avantivarman (855-883 AD) and whose mention can be found in the book of Rajatarangini penned by Kalhana. It is believed that during Avantivarman’s time, horrendous flood ravaged in the River Jehlum devastating the local businesses, people’s lives . Therefore, Suyya is credited with immense technological advancements in river dredging preventing the colossal onslaught of floods. This allowed local residents to harvest their crops and indulge in large scale businesses bringing riches and happiness back to it’s people.

This piece of history validates the fact that some leader of thought and courage has emerged in Kashmir whenever there has been degradation of lives or property. Sopore was named after Suyya to acknowledge his tremendous contribution in dredging and deepening the River Jehlum and giving the appropriate impetus to local business. In wake of the floods that devastated the Kashmir valley in 2014, especially the city of Srinagar along with the incessant socio-political tribulations, the work of the founder, Ms Atiqua Bano ji, Meeras Mahal Museum Sopore is extraordinary. They have demonstrated that even in a state of constant oppression from all fronts, a sanctuary of learning and historical research can be made to stand strong defying all odds. The community of Meeras Mahal  Museum, Sopore hopes to yet again lead the intellectual brigade from all of Kashmir.

Meeras Mahal Museum : a seat of Kashmir’s Heritage

On the outskirts of a sleepy town of Sopore, some 36 Kms north of Srinagar, lies a wealth of cultural and traditional heritage. Albeit, often in news for all the wrong reasons, the town of Sopore which is also known as the apple orchard of Kashmir, houses within its bosom a massive ethnographic collection depicting the richness of Kashmir’s cultural and civilizational past. The remnants of the most mighty kingdoms and beginning of the most profound religions along with the antique objects of a commoner’s use have been interred into the soil of Kashmir’s cradle. Some part of this invaluable treasure has been preserved in the shape of a very young museum rightly named as The Meeras Mahal Museum, or the Heritage Palace Museum, Sopore. From intricate ancient wood and stone works , implements and tools used approximately more than 1000 years ago or so to the most prosperous and affluent expensive as well as inexpensive ornaments used by the residents from all over Kashmir complete the spectrum of this museum.  

Meeras Mahal is the brainchild of the affection and constant dedication of Ms. Atiqua Bano, who is not only the patron of this museum but also a scholar and an educationist in her own right, serving the socio-cultural landscape of Sopore and all of Kashmir throughout her life. She has single handedly, with the help and assistance of the local residents of Sopore, led this initiative to safeguard the traditional objects and knowledge which is now withering at tremendous pace under political as well as natural plight. In wake of the devious floods that devastated not only the residential complexes in Srinagar and adjoining areas, there was large scale destruction that displaced and destroyed the artefacts in the Museum of Kashmir University. The house of late kashmiri poet Agah Shahid Ali in Srinagar also was destroyed and an immense loss of old manuscripts was reported. Given these examples, one realizes the sheer importance of education centres like a heritage museum and its careful preservation, conservation and documentation.

The magnificent collection being preserved under the aegis of Meeras Mahal was established in the year 2001 and is a registered institution under public trust. What is highly impressive is that Atiqua Madam has as an individual dedicated all her efforts to preserve and flourish this collection with more additions and more knowledge. She has to the fullest of her capability been able to establish this institution as a potent centre for historical learning and research.

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AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Museum as a concept is not at all a modern one. It has been known that museums in their earliest forms have existed ever since the Vedic and Greek periods. Museums therefore are an integral and indispensable part of a culturally conscious people. Various experts of Museology state that the chronological progress of human civilization depends entirely on accumulation and dispersal of knowledge.(p.15)[1] This traditional knowledge is alive as a deposit that has been and will continue to benefit the future generations in intellectual as well as material advancements.

The fundamental aim of a museum is to inculcate voluntary as well as involuntary initiatives to garner greater reach among scholars and civilians. This has to be done while engulfing in its scope the subject area to its best potential. The policy of this scope is to serve the intellectual and scholarly growth of the community. This is the backbone that builds the concept of a museum. 

Kashmir is a rich land which has witnessed various ups and downs, advents and declines of many great civilizations. It has been a melting pot of numerous cultures and a seat of higher learning since ages. Some remains of such a past rendered invaluable by archaeological and historical discoveries have been rescued and collected in Meeras Mahal Museum, Sopore.

Some aims that Meeras Mahal strives to work for are presented as follows:

1)    To acquire objects as the museum specimens.

To allow the museum grow by leaps and bounds and to ensure that it accumulates a wide ranging array of ethnographic knowledge, it is needed that there are timely and constant additions of new specimens. Interaction with other local and state level museums and collectors should be made possible for Meeras Mahal in order to benefit from exchanges.

2)    To Conserve the Specimens

The items in the possession of the museum are tangible heritage objects that are perishable with time unless appropriate measures of conservation and preservation are employed. There has to be strict observation of humidity levels, temperature that must not decrease or increase to a certain extent and impeccable measures of cleanliness and fire-safety put in place. Meeras Mahal aims to safeguard its wealth in accordance with international standards of museum keeping.

3)    To Display for Communications.

The undeniable motive of any museum world over is to display its objects now and then to the wider community. Meeras Mahal envisions the involvement of the museum with the local community and others on a deeper level for larger social progress. Timely exhibitions and displays with school and college students visiting often to learn about our ancient past can bring about enlightened and tolerant citizens and future leaders.

4)    To make Arrangements for Research

It is imperative to let the flow of knowledge from the museum be directed towards higher research and scholarship. Therefore, Meeras Mahal anticipates an influx of research students and scholars in the field of Culture and Anthropology to foster a readership that can avail the academic analysis and inferences in form of research papers, published essays and journals. 

5)    A clean and Good Administration

To make all of the above possible and fruitful, it is necessary to build an internal administrative body of efficient staff that feels responsible and is duly accountable with regards to various duties pertaining various museum activities. It will be a dream come true for the Museum if local residents and community members from Sopore are trained in inclusive field research and data collection.

     

About the Patron

The town of Sopore prides itself either on its magnificent apple orchards or the number of colleges and educational institutions, showcasing its prosperity in not just material wealth but in intellectual development as well. Even though such an environment is conducive and attentive to cultural heritage, The existence of Meeras Mahal Museum could not have been possible without Madam Attiqa Bano. Her life history has been that of an achiever and being a lady of stern determination she declined marital life so as to dedicate all her time to philanthropy. Born into a family of educationists who ran maktabs way back in Sopore, the influence upon her towards social uplift was immense. She defied all social norms and went on to complete a double M.A in Urdu and Economics by 1958. Soon after, she left Kashmir for Rajasthan’s Banasthali Vidyapeeth University where she came under the guidance of Mridula Sarabhai, the great freedom fighter, educationist and social worker.  She worked hard and with utmost sincerity to carve out a niche for herself in a severely male oppressed society. With an unblemished professional record, Attiqa ji progressed to become Chief Education Officer for Baramulla district in 1977. Eventually she retired as the Director, Libraries and Research, Jammu and Kashmir in 1997. Given such a prolific career in the field of Education, she maintained a zest and keenness for cultural artefacts and over time her mundane assortment of odd objects grew in size and significance too, which came to be known as Meeras Mahal Museum, Sopore.

What Attiqa ji has been able to achieve is incredible in terms of individual initiative and generating community involvement. The result has been in the form of this fabulous collection that provides one with the glimpses of Attiqa Bano’s dream. She confesses to harbour a vision to see Sopore as “mini-Kashmir”, a functional prototype of an ideal town, a revered and welcoming seat for all kinds of cultural diversity that Kashmir once possessed. 

Categorization:

To gain a better picture of the sprawl of objects in the museum, a general classification and description can serve a great deal for their study. Following are the ways they have been categorized:

1.   Wood Crafts

Kashmirs wood work has proved its worth globally, be it in terms of aesthetically appealing crafts or utilitarian object of sport as a willow cricket bat. Walnut wood work is something that Kashmir takes immense pride in. But what is not known is that the knowledge of carving the wood into finest intricate patterns existed in Kashmir ever since the reign of king Zain-ul-abidin. Badshah Zainl ul was one of the most noble of kings to have ruled the land of Kashmir. He encouraged the artisan class to reach their zenith. Kashmiri wooden architecture is also famous for its elaborately carved wooden balconies which find their vernacular name, Zena Dub, derived from Zail ul Abidin’s name. In the wood crafts section of the Museum, we can find a large variety of objects ranging from the carved wooden joinery jaali bereft of nail work of the balcony, door panels, big and small kitchen utensils complete with accompanying spoons.  One can also find intricately carved double sided combs made of Chikri wood. Other traditional folk wood craft items include ladles or chonchas of various sizes, rise measure balance or longuras, plain and decorated wooden sandles or khravs, the spinning wheel or yinder, and all kinds of children’s toys, cradles, walkers and carts. One can also find a separate collection of traditional musical instruments like rabahb made in exquisite wood.

2.   Ethno-botanical collection (hay and grass ware)

Human being has been able to develop a deep bond with nature in a way that is magnificent in its own self. Especially knowledge about the flora and fauna has been able to enrich the store house of knowledge allowing human civilizations to progress. Ethnobotany is the scientific study of this relationship between humans and plants. Meeras Mahal houses in its premise a rich collection of this traditional knowledge in form of tangible heritage. They possess a wide variety of items in their ethno-botanical section such as wood, wicker, straw and hay items. All Kashmir enthusiasts would for sure fondly recount the warmth of a Kangri, a quaint earthen fire pot that is held in the frame of decoratively woven willow. This traditional heater is usually slipped under the firan or a warm tunic worn by men and women during winter months. Meeras Mahal houses a myriad variety of these kangris.  There are many decorative bridal kangris as well which are carried by newly wed brides while they take off to their in-laws houses. The traditional basketry of Kashmir is one of the most famous ones and Meeras Mahal has a rich variety of baskets in all shapes, sizes and designs woven in many different kinds of grasses and straws.

Traditional hand fans, or the waavij crafted in the most delicate ways is a popular item that can still be found in houses in hot months of the year. Willow from the Ganderbal forests is very popular for making the waggu mats. The reed mace is also collected from the edges of Nigeen lake to makes these mats. These mats have been collected in the museum with several designs that have been used by people from every religions. One can also find the footware called as Palahru or straw shoes that seem to have origins from the Kishtwar region that were used to brave wet and slippery terrains.

3.   Stone Items

Stone work: cavring and chiselling of stone is one of the oldest indicators of human civilization to record time and animate an inanimate object like a stone. Study of stone work can provide massive information about the past heritage and history. The most ancient types of stone and mortar or kajveth can be found in the museum collection. These are still used in their most simplest of forms. The collection also contains a stone item carved with Buddhist inscription. Stone has frequently been frequently used in Ladakh to carve huge figurines or text on rock faces or a votive offering at crossroads and other conspicuous places. The Neolithic age saw people of Kashmir engage in stone, carving out various kinds of tools, each one unique in their own way, helping them hunt and dig the earth for farming etc.

Most of the collection in the museum comprise of kitchen ware and utensils, tools, and vessels, stone seal cutter etc. There are several monumental remains that seem to have been excavated from Semthan, Bijbehara, Fatehghar, Parihaspora in Mattan and from the ruins in the neighbouring Pattan. It is known by scholars now that the advent of Mughal brought with them their archaeological wonders especially in black marble. There seem to be several cooking pots in the collection made from the same. At the same time, workmanship of these stone artefacts are worth appreciation even in the present times after ages have passed. The cooking pots called lungto and its variants can be seen in the museum.

4.     Metal work

The museum has a wide and amazing variety of metal objects that are replete with intricate hand work, with paisley and almond motifs. You can also see find beautiful patterns of serpentine, Chinaar leaves and flowers and birds inscribed on the surface of the metal ware of all kinds. Copper was locally mined during medieval times and is reported to have been extracted from Lolab valley in Kuphwara district.

During the Mughal era metalwork gained by grew in its aesthetic value, even though most of the craft was concentrated to swords and shield making. Consequently, the hereditary skill of the Kashmir metal workers was directed towards ornamental vessels such as aftaba, surahi and other such items of domestic use. The shape of these vessels denote Indo Persian tradition, while the motifs are usually Kashmiri. Ornamental tumblers, teliwar, isbandsoz, majma, chamcha and choncha, and newer pailanor and batta chalan have been added to the traditional items. The museum collection includes magnificent looking ancient and huge locks, weighs, balance, chonche(spoons), utensils like somavars (kahwa tea containers) and digchis(huge cooking pots) mugs or khosa(tea cups), oversized buttons, naas dabba(or naswar were used as local inebiratives)and tobbaco boxes, jewellery boxes, large taveez etc. The museum also has a modest collection of metal objects like gedva, ghanti etc that were used by the Pandith community in religious ceremonies. These are found in copper and brass metal works.

5.   Earthen ware (terracotta )

The bond of human civilization with his or her earth, their soil has deepest of root. baking of clay after being moulded on the potter’s wheel has been one of the earliest inventions giving shape to human civilization itself. The site of Mohenjo daro  is bridled with terracotta artefacts, seals and tablets. Kashmir is rich in a variety of clay eminently suitable to the potter’s craft which has been practiced in the valley since Neolithic times. While potters from Kashmir and Jammu use the potters wheel, the ones from Ladakh mould the lay objects with their own hands with the help of wooden some equipments.

Meeras Mahal museum contains myriad terracotta items that range from all kinds of kitchen utensils, cooking pots and water pots that can be traced to the Gofkal and Burzahom sites of Kashmir. The most significant achievement of the Neolithic period was the rough grey earthenware with straw marks on its exterior. This is perhaps the period in Kashmir when pottery emerged as a source of supplementing their economy. At the Museum one can find several specimens of the grey earthen pot that are quite ancient and intriguing at the same time. Terracotta miniature vases, incense burners, rattles and ladles are other things kept preserved inside the museum. One can also see present day math, deg, tsod (types of pots) and other vessels which are almost replicas of pottery objects used around four thousand years ago.   

6.   Numismatics or Coinage

The discoveries in Kashmir coinage system reveal the circulation of coins ever since and during pre-Indo Greek periods.  The physical markers of the coins of this age is that they are punched from a single side and the reverse is kept blank. The museum’s collection of coins partly seem to be much older than the Kushana periods. Some of the coins also represent the coinage system from the Hun era. Both these kingdoms had copper coins in circulation and these were not changed untill the advent of Muslim sultans. They brought with them silver coinage  with distinct Arabic inscriptions. Copper and silver continued to remain main metals used for coins even after the Mughal rule. It was the Durrani’s who inscribed Persian couplets on copper coins as their addition. Sikhs  who succeeded the Durrani’s issued currency with Persian as well as Gurmukhi characters. All this was possible because Kashmir has by now had it’s own mint. It was only in the Dogra rule that paper money was introduced besides coins.

The museum has specimens from almost all of these eras trailing the rich history of Kashmir’s economic past.

7.   Ornaments

The Collection of ornaments and jewellery at the museum is truly spell bounding. One can see a wide range of jewellery fully adorned on mannequins describing the wondrous ways Kashmir’s culture and heritage is bestowed with. The intricately crafted ornaments find their mention in Kalhan’s Rajatarangini in description of gold and silversmiths. Kashmiri women, be they from Jammu, Ladakh or the Kashmir valley have always believed in embellishing their unmatched beauty with the magnificent ornaments made of gold and silver. The powerful reign of Queen Didda in the 10^th century AD allowed women folk of Kashmir to amass and experiment with jewellery design and technology. The museum has to their best capability ensured that the wear-ability of each ornament be showcased by displaying them on inanimate mannequins to enrich us with an idea of the past glory.

The museum will provide with the glimpse of the fabled kashmiri beauty, especially the uncommon gold and silver caps, with ear ornaments suspended from both sides and covered with a decorative cloth. The headdress is now common among gujjar women but is mandatory for Pandith bride while the marriage ceremony is taking place. Regarding a unique Pandith piece of jewellery, unseen in Kashmir at the present times is Uthhoor and Dejhoor, worn by married Pandith women and is well documented at the Museum. Another object that is rare and fascinating enough are the splendid assortment of well designed pins that older women used to attach to their clothes as an ornamental addition. Some vernacular names of the jewellery are kann-vaji (earrings) suspended from the head. Halakband is the neck ornament that used to worn by rural women. Chaunk phool is a unique silver ornament worn on the head under the veil. There are also many kinds of tawiz  or amulets of different shapes and sizes with Arabic inscriptions or beautiful designs that are still worn to safeguard from evil eye. Gunus a thick bangle of solid gold and silver with a snake or loin head at the two ends, has survived over the years. There are also metallic shirt buttons and cuff links that are used for ornamental purposes. 

8.   Textiles, Traditional Attires and Embroidery

World over, a Cashmere shawl or sweater is known as a symbol of finest luxury. It is a woven textile in wool that derives its name from Kashmir itself. The Kashmiri weaver works in the most meticulous ways to produce works that are incomparable globally. The museum has ensured that some colourfully bright glimpses can be provided to its visitors.

The tapestry of the past rural glory is showcased in its full regalia on the mannequins depicting the styles of dressing in Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir. The ways of dressing in Kashmir  has been influenced by its rough climate and larger rural population who believe in traditional way of life. Spinning yarn on yinder   wheel was a way of life for the older women in every household. Kashmiri shawl are renowned for their intricate yet mesmerizing patterns and motifs. The shawls from Gurez area use no dyes on their wool, rather the wool from different kinds of sheep and and designs are created from different shares already available, forming a kind of bold patterned pattu shawl. Chadar etc are also formed by these, making it useful as a warming garment laid either for bedding or to be wrapped on the self. Kashmir’s most famous embroidery is the crewel work and raffal , a finer design work used on shawls. It is fascinating to know that the fabled Kani shawl especially for it’s cheet misri work follows a written codified notation that is known as Talim.

All aside, it is the Pashmina which has been stealing all the limelight and is the secret behind the “cashmere” shawls. The Museum’s collection of these items is seen worn on the mannequins and one can notice that some of the bordering embroidery work has taken place in pashmina wool. The firan worn by women in the valley is a type of long gown. The women wore a fillet around their heads known as the Kasaba by Muslim women and Taranga by Pandith women. A tilla firan is the one with exquisite embroidery in gold or silver thread is worn by Muslim women whereas Pandith women usually adorn the tilla shawl after marriage. Stylised floral motifs and geometric patterns embellish the garment. A Dogri woman on the other hand on her marriage dons a pair of salwar kurta that is replete with gota and sequin work in silver or gold. A Ladakhi traditional dress is adorned with bead work and is warmed enough by the use of Yak wool. The museum preserves a specimen depicting one of the yak wool coats from Ladakh region.

9.   Manuscripts, Rare books and Documents and Calligraphy

Literary development is Kashmir is said to have taken place long before it was noticed anywhere else. Kashmir witnessed a confluence of scholars from all faiths and disciplines and became a revered seat of higher learning. The Museum’s collection of Rare books and truly ancient manuscripts is an eye opener, a revelation that proves what exemplary plurality existed in Kashmir ages ago. To give a brief description, in the section of old manuscripts, one can find samples of Arabic and Persian poetry, Masnavi by Maulana Jalaludin Rumi, old Fables like Mehraj-Nama, Pann Nama, Gulistaan. Special mention goes to the presence of Islamic manuscripts like, Al Hadith, Koran and History, Tib (Islamic Medicine and Grammar), Dala-il-Khairat and other authentic Kashmiri fables. Mashkwaat, Seerat Pakh are other manuscripts that can be understood as biographies.

There are also manuscripts from the Hindu Baghwat Gita which is present in Sanskrit script. the museum also has some astrology specific illustrations from the Gita which are amazingly labelled in Hindi and Urdu, claimed to be around 150 or so years old.  Other scholarly texts from the Hindu manuscripts include Maansagar or an understanding of human psychology in Sanskrit shlokas translated to hindi, and authored by Wahitacharya. The magical Talim on which a folk weaver bases his or her embroidery and dexterity is also present in its actual form. One can also find some 50 to 75 years old Niqah and talaq namas as well.

In the rare books section, there is of course Al Koran, Al Hadis, history and Poetry, Islamic and contemporary Laws. It is spell binding to see the holy Koran in colourful bordering work written in Arabic and Persian. This collection also has the Akbarnama and Sikandarnama in Persian language. Scientific Islamic texts include a book about Mathematics in Arabic language. Other books published around 1916-1919, at the time of the Dogra rule, one can find some hard bound titles like Stava-Chintamani by Bhatta Narayana and commentary by Kshameraja. The publishing press used for these titles was either Kashmir Pratap steam Press in the valley or through other publishers in Bombay.

In the collection of Manuscripts and rare books, the museum is yet to identify the one in Sharda and Pali script. With adequate influx of scholarship to Meeras Mahal, it shall be possible and available very soon.  

The Calligraphic art that can be found in the Arabic, Urdu and Persian manuscripts is a magnificent one to study. The images done in the calligraphic patterns have their origins in narrating Koranic verses and the stories of animals and birds. It is a matter of pride that Meeras Mahal mueum possesses a section of calligraphy about Prophet Mohammad(PBUH) in 200 and more different styles. The Museum has been a house to these rare gems and a source of great influence and inspiration for the calligraphy center which is affiliated with the National Council for Promotion for Urdu Languages, Delhi. The Calligraphy center is a separate sister institution but has been able to benefit from the rich repository of information from this textual archive of the Museum.

10.               Photographs and Paintings

The need to familiarize the present generation with the past must not be limited to showcasing of arts and crafts and tangible objects only. Information regarding the people who lived and made their lives worth living by fostering the richness of Kashmiri culture are deemed as necessary as other heritage items. These pioneers are the gems that adorn the walls of one of the halls entirely dedicated to this sections. Most part of the section are photograph of portraits of various luminaries that have walked the land of Kashmir. There range from ancient black and white photographs of long forgotten dancing royal courtesans complete in their dancing poses and accompanist musicians. There are also pictures of artisans doing tilla embroidery and engaging in other crafts.

Kashmir valley and it’s mountainous terrain has seen several wandering seers, saints and poets. Some of them like Habba Khatoon, Lal Ded, Nund Reshi, Sultan Bab, Ahad Sahab, bhagwaan Gopinath, shaivite scholars like Laxman Joo and many more are exhibited here in this gallery. Prominent singers like Raj Begun, Kailash Mehra, Ritch Ded and Shameema Dev Azad are among others displayed among the most melodious singers of the community. The women of the valley have displayed tremendous zeal in all fields of expertise, be it ruling the kingdom of Kashmir by Queen Didda or in the modern day Administrative services by forerunners like first woman IAS from Kashmir like Smt. Swarnalata Kachroo etc. Moving ahead one can see prominent political leaders from Sheikh Abdullah to Shaheed Maqbool Bhat to Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Along with the political leaders there can be seen prolific social reformers like Subla Naid, the one credited with the eradication of prostitution from Kashmir. One can also find some prints of the ancient paintings from Babur nama also displayed on the walls of this gallery along with a Buddhist thangka work on cloth.

11.               Kitchen and Tools shed

It was felt that mere looking at the objects  would not provide the viewer with sufficient knowledge to paint the picture of old style life in Kashmir. One of the fascinating features of Meeras Mahal Museum is their unique kitchen and tool shed. Reconstructed according to older times, and complete with mud choolha or the fire place, raised platform for sitting and appropriately set wooden utensils on the kitchen shelves, from smallest choncha to the biggest deegchi, this little shed is worth a visit. The sitting area inside the kitchen has been maintained as per the traditional ways, depicting how a kitchen in the past, untouched by modern technological advancements functioned.

On similar thoughts, the shed adjacent to the kitchen can be called a tool shed since it contains all the heavy tools that were used by the local community people to spin yarn, plough the earth, cut and dissect the meat, cutting timber, crush the spices etc. These tools are assorted and maintained in the way they might have been or perhaps still are in the most rural and remote parts of Kashmir. These tools range from metal, stone to wood equipments used in the kitchen, or in the farm etc.   

12.               Museum Library

Every museum ideally must maintain a reading section fostering a culture of knowledge gaining and research. Meeras Mahal Museum also has a modest number of books to supplement the knowledge house which is stored in form of tangible objects. The museum has limited but variety of books that range from Museology, national and state level gazetteers, encyclopaedias, books on Kashmir archaeology, ethnography and larger popular culture including, crafts, music, natural flora fauna and built heritage. The visitors can sit and skim or read through the various contents giving them an idea of the historical background of the objects present in the museum. This is an essential unit and it is hoped that it will grow by leaps and bounds as and when more books are added pertaining fresher and older discoveries in and about Kashmir.

IMMEDIATE NEEDS for the museum:

Even though the collection at the museum is massive, there is a dire need to maintain the items as per the standardised norms of museum keeping. Only then can one ensure a longer life of the artifacts and successfully be displayed numerous times.  

1) The collected artefacts in the museum are somehow deposited into few rooms of a two storey building that shares its premises with a primary school. To allow the museum to flourish, it is suggested that the items be relocated to a spacious and separate building which might also have the facility of a decent auditorium, seminar hall with ample projectors with modern audio video and electronic facilities. This building must be built in Sopore itself of accessibility and usability by local residents, students as well as visitors from outside. 

2) There needs to be proper categorization as per historical research done in order to understand and study the various items in the collection.

3) Experienced and learned staff in the field of Ethnography, Anthropology, Culture Studies, Museology and Archive Studies is the need of the hour at Meeras Mahal. But this is possible only if and when enough funds and sponsors gather to nurture this institution. 

4) No standardized and proper means of conservation and preservation have been put in place to safeguard the items from day to day wear and tear and climatic changes. Procurement of instruments that help in regulating the environment inside the museum building need to be procured as soon as possible.

5) There is some need to popularize the museum among educational institutes of Kashmir and outside. The research in cultural fields can find enough boost once the wealth of this young museum reaches the larger audience.

Submitted by

Neha Tickoo (Zooni)

Contact: tickoo.neha@gmail.com

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[1] Museology : Some Cute Points. Dilip Kumar Roy. Kalpaz Publications, Delhi, 2006