Museum to come alive with interactive additions

KOLKATA: The Indian Museum may boast of a vast collection of artefacts, paintings, documents and models of pre-historic animals, but most visitors come back without understanding the historical ramifications of these specimens. From Friday, however, that will change. The museum authorities have plans to interact with visitors in different ways to present the collection in the right perspective. This is the first time that any state-backed museum will have live action around its collections.


The authorities have chosen May 18, celebrated as Museum Day, to usher in the transformation. To start with, only some artefacts and paintings have been selected for the “live art” demonstration. Gradually, the entire collection will be covered.



Stone sculptures in dancing poses, dating back to the first century BC, which line the corridors and galleries usually get cursory glances from visitors who peer at the plaques that say where that item was unearthed and move on. On Friday, trained classical dance exponents, including Lakshmi Ramaswamy and Yajnaseni Chatterjee, will strike poses alongside the statues and explain how the dance mudras have remained unadulterated for over 2,000 years. This will lead to a discussion on the connection between the place where the statue was unearthed and the origin of the dance form.

In the Buddha Gallery, where priceless relics and Mathura and Gandhara art sculptures have been placed, visitors will be greeted with a film on Buddha. “There will be an audio-visual tour of the hall that will virtually transport visitors to those times, explaining where Buddha lived, the places he travelled to and so on. A special ambience is being created inside the hall,” explained director Rajesh Purohit.

Other attractions will include impromptu plays related to Rabindranath Tagore’s life. For each of Tagore’s paintings or paintings from the Bengal School, audio clips will be provided on anecdotes about them. There will also be an audio bank where visitors can hear stories behind Tagore’s letters, stories and novels. “There is a connection between Tagore and baul music. Much of his music was influenced by it. While we will often play baul tunes that have a clear connect with Tagore songs, we will also arrange for live baul music in rotation,” Purohit said.