Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum is situated on Bajirao Road, Shukrawar Peth, Pune. It was my long time dream to visit this museum about which I had read some article and I could only visit now.
They story behind making of Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum is very touching. Raja was the only son of Dr. Dinkar G. Kelkar (1896–1990) and he died at an early age of 7. After the death of his only son, Dr. Kelkar decided to establish a museum in his memory. That is how the museum is named as "Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum", named after Raja.
The museum was established by Dr. Kelkar in 1962; and in 1975 he donated the museum to the government of Maharashtra. Ever since the state government has been maintaining it.
Dr. Dinkar Kelkar dedicated major part of his life into collecting the previous objects and artefacts for the museum from all over India. The museum is dedicated to the "everyday life" from history and hence collections are of items like pots, lamps, containers, vessels, home temples, palkis, clothes, musical instruments along with weapons of war.
A section inside the museum depicts 'Mastani Mahal' - Mastani, known as second wife of Peshwa Bajirao I.
Here are some of the pictures from my visit:
Replica of Mastani Mahal (above)
The museum has an entry fee of Rs 50 and you can buy a photography license for Rs 100 for taking photographs inside the museum.
I would remember a lot of items from the museum for a long time. There was a huge "nagada" (musical instrument) belonging to Mahadji Shinde. There were huge metal boxes and almirahs. There were wooden "Temple Doors". There is a huge collection of "Home Temples" belonging to 17th/18th century, mostly donated by Maharashtrian families.
In fact a large part of collection consists of objects donated by Maharashtrian families which I found very touching. If they kept those items in their homes, those items could get lost or destroyed over the years. Also, not many would get to know about those items. Hence they allowed the museum to house those items, thereby benefitting future generations. The museum keeps name plate mentioning the name of the donating person/family along with the items, as a gesture.
One more thing surprised me - there were "combs" made of "iron"! Never thought there could be metallic combs for hair! And then there were "ivory combs" of 18th century! Certainly our ancestors were creative.
The collection is from all over India. I could see a lot of collections from South India as well. But I could feel majority of collections were from Maharashtra which is natural. The musical instrument collection is huge - with lots of precious big veenas. War items collection consists of huge collection of guns from 18th/19th centuries. Some guns were really heavy and had very long barrels. Along with swords, there were some shields "dhaals" which were made of iron - and it must have taken huge strength to carry those shields.
Visiting the museum, one would certainly feel proud of our past and our ancestors.
I could see that there were several foreigners visiting the museum too.
One more thing worth noticing was that Ratan D. Tata has donated lots of stuff in the museum, including articles on display and some modern gadgets like touch-screen panels.
The museum is situated on Bajirao Road in Shukrawar Peth which is the old and original part of Pune. You may find the lanes narrow; since those were created long time ago. But once you go inside the museum you would realize that the efforts to reach there was worth it.
This is a must visit place in Pune.
- Rahul Tiwary | March 2019
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