Kashmir’s first e-museum
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Context: A rare virtual museum from Sopore, 40 km from Srinagar, will showcase the lifetime collection of a female Kashmiri educationist, Atiqa Bano, who managed to create a huge repository of artefact through door-to-door collections.
More about news:
- Meeras Mahal was her dream project, , where she wanted to set up Kashmir’s first community museum in Highland Colony at Sopore in a multi-storey building on land donated by her.
- She has collected 8,000 artefacts --- ranging from kitchen utensils to agricultural tools, clothing, earthenware and manuscripts.
- The collection includes donations from Kashmiri Pandit families of old-style earthen puja thalis and wooden palanquins with god and goddesses.
- The collection has terracotta items from the 4th Century Kushan period, coins from pre-Islamic era and artefacts from the Buddhist period.
First e-Museum:
- The artefact collection throws light on the life and customs of 18th and 19th Century rural Kashmir.
- The Aliph Foundation, an international organisation involved in protecting cultural heritage, has approved grants for the e-museum as part of their post-COVID rehabilitation programme.
- It is likely to open a new gateway to understanding the life and times of Kashmir.
- It’s an ethnographic collection and highlights the day-to-day life of rural Kashmir, whether that of a farmer or of someone from the elite class.
- The collection reflects a syncretic culture of Kashmir. Artefact is inclusive and give representation to Muslims, Pandits, Sikhs, and Gujjar culture
- The e-museum would be rare in the country for it’s not a typical private museum set up by any heiress or someone from an elite gharana. It reflects the dedication of a lifetime of an ordinary woman living in a far-off rural pocket in north Kashmir.
- The museum throws light on the vernacular functional life, preserving a layer of culture.
- The virtual museum is likely to be online by May this year and is likely to be the stepping stone to set up Kashmir’s first community museum in Sopore.
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