All These Colors Tour: India Part 20
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Kolkata, India
I finally made it over to the Indian Museum in the late afternoon, just in time for a couple of hours of viewing pleasure. Situated inside a huge, white, rectangular building with a courtyard in the middle, it bills itself as “India’s oldest museum,” and it sure looks like it. Founded in 1814, it’s completely jammed full of dusty, musty old displays that look like they haven’t been updated or even cleaned since then. Actually several museums rolled into one, it boasts huge collections that run the gamut from archaeology (violence-soaked dioramas of prehistoric humans), anthropology (dioramas of traditional Indian cultures), geology (fossils, rocks, minerals, etc.), zoology (taxidermy, bones, etc.), botany and art (impressive, beautiful paintings, drawings and sculpture from India and Southeast Asia). Some standouts included a menagerie of dust-covered stuffed animals that looked absolutely ghastly, ditto a bunch of strange, pickled sea creatures, a whale skeleton missing a bunch of bones, a small Brachiosaurus model hidden back in a dark corner, and the list goes on. The real charm of this place is the funky, homely presentation. If you’re ever in Kolkata, definitely give the Indian Museum a go, even though you’ll have to fork over an entry fee that is 15 times the amount a local would pay.
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Words and photos ©2012 Arcane Candy.
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