Indian Museum Special

Clockwise from top left: MAP, Kamini Sawhney,  Mehrangarh Fort,  Sharan Apparao, Priya Paul, and Tarang Arora Why are museum shops in India not as thoughtfully curated as those you find abroad? We have both craftspeople and design experts…

Anita Ratnam | Photo Credit:  G. Venket Ram My children and friends know that I must make that mandatory stop at the museum shop if I am travelling abroad. There is a deep local engagement you find at a museum store and, on returning home,…

Once upon a time, India was a merry museum of multitudinous histories, traditional treasures, collections of cultural and intellectual inheritance. And then, infiltrative deception and depletion fast eroded this eternal sense of pride.…

Recently, while attending an event in Mallorca, Spain, I spotted a foreigner wearing a tulsi bead necklace. When I commented on how ‘Indian’ it looks, he immediately apologised to me and said that he didn’t mean to appropriate it. I told…

There’s nothing quite like a big moment to help reset our ‘cultural’ memories. The G20 summit is turning out to be one such moment — turning the spotlight on our cultural economy and reactivating public museums.A few weeks ago, I was in…