‘MUSEUMS SHOULD BRING HISTORY ALIVE

‘MUSEUMS SHOULD BRING HISTORY ALIVE

Museums should provide a living experience about the life of yore. No amount of reading can match the visual encounter with historic creations at museums, the director general of the Centre for Heritage Studies (CHS), Tripunithura, M.G.S. Narayanan has said. Sadly, most museums in India do not provide a living experience to visitors. The old concept of museums being a storehouse of antiquities for the scholarly must change so that they become centres of informal education.“Though Kerala's Archaeology Department oversees museums in the State, the department does not have a director and archaeologists. We hope to remedy the situation soon,” he said, while speaking on ‘Museums in a changing world, with reference to Kerala,' at the International Museum Day celebrations organised in Kochi on Friday by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).He said that though the services of the ASI are sought even by many foreign governments, the agency's role in preserving monuments in India is not acknowledged.Referring to the systematic way in which monuments are preserved in many other countries, he spoke of a visit to the Shakespeare Village (museum) in the UK.

“I spent a whole day there with family, visiting his house, school etc., which were reconstructed in detail. It was a full Shakespeare experience, with his plays being staged at night. The funds for maintaining it is raised from the entry fee, and there is no dependence on the government. At a Buddhist centre in Japan, deer are trained to greet visitors by bowing three times. In Boston, USA, visitors have the option of re-enacting the Boston tea party. Taking a cue from these, the Thunchanparambu (which was the home of Ezhuthachan, the father of Malayalam) can probably have parrots trained to recite Ramayana verses. This would help experience history,” Dr. Narayanan said.He spoke of how a proposal to set up three museums in Kozhikode and link them by a tour circuit fell flat owing to lack of interest by the government.“We at the CHS are planning a digitised reference library of Kerala heritage and culture.”Others who spoke include the CHS' academic dean Dr. M.G. Sasibhooshan and the ASI's assistant superintending archaeologist in Kochi M. Kali Muthu.

Prof. John Kurakar