ASI children’s museum helping hand for heritage

Quest aims at stirring awareness and opinions. Today,when all that children see are shopping malls and cineplexes,we at The Indian Express want to show a completely different picture of this city to them. Delhi has changed beyond nostalgia and recognition since Independence. How many of these kids know of the ‘Seven Cities’ of Delhi or the stories of the pigeon fliers of Old Delhi?

The idea behind such an activity is to create awareness about the various structures and monuments that the students do not know about. This is a specially designed programme,which will help the students appreciate the rich culture and background of this city. In association with INTACH and ASI,this is a small effort on our behalf to depict a phase of our national life and the decay of a whole culture,a particular mode of thought and living. The visit is followed by the students sending in articles,pictures,poems,paintings,and collages to express their experiences about the heritage walk.

An unknown treasure
My visit to the ASI Children’s Museum for Heritage was very informative. We entered the museum,which has a beautiful garden. We then saw the Past-Present Hall which had photos of many monuments showing us how the monument looked centuries ago. It had old and new pictures of many famous historical places such as the Tomb of Razia Sultan,Bara Gumbad and many more. After that,we went to a hall called Astitva that contained dummy walls of monuments in Delhi that had been defaced with posters and names written on it. This room emphasised on preserving these monuments so that the coming generations can view and absorb knowledge from them. We saw the dilapidated condition of some of our treasures that are lesser known to the world. Later,we all took a pledge that we won’t destroy our monuments.
—ADITYA JOSHI,
CLASS VII-B

Trip to the past
My visit to the ASI Children’s Museum for Heritage in Siri Fort Complex taught me a lot about saving monuments. The ASI Museum is full of information for children as well as elders. In the first hall,there are old and new pictures of historical monuments. They showed how in earlier times,the monuments were in a better condition than now. The Chhatta Bazar was not a shopping place,but now it has turned nito one. As India gets more developed,these monuments are slowly decaying. But the citizens of this country are not developing their minds — when they go to these beautiful monuments,they write their names,stick posters and also spit all over the place.

People organise picnics at these spots and scatter garbage everywhere. These monuments are great tourist spots and they help us get acquainted with our past. But if this disregard continues,the next generation will only be reading about them in history books,but never see them for real. We should promise ourselves and to our nation that we will save our monuments.

We should organise groups and ask our elders to help us protest and ask the government to punish people who destroy these monuments. Also,when we see someone defacing these monuments,we can prevent him.

We have to remember that if there is a will there is a way. This is something we are doing for the betterment of our country and proving our true love for our country.
—HARI SHANKAR AGGARWAL
CLASS VII-C

Our heritage
ASI Heritage Museum is located in the Siri Fort Complex,New Delhi. The Archaeological Survey of India takes care of our old buildings and monuments. This museum tells us how important our heritage and monuments are. Have you ever seen or read about Ghiasuddin Tughluq’s Tomb,Isa Khan’s Tomb,Shah Burj or Sikandar Lodhi’s Tomb? They all are situated in Delhi. However,you can see their pictures in this museum. We don’t visit them because they are all in a dilapidated condition. They are being destroyed by nature and irresponsible actions of man like pollution,thefts,posters,writing on walls among others.

Our monuments constitute our living heritage. In Delhi,there are many monuments,among which we know only the famous ones like Qutub Minar,Red Fort and Humayun’s Tomb. Our visit to the museum sensitised us about the damage being done to our monuments and buildings. It is time to think differently,act wisely and correct our past mistakes.

We must preserve our heritage so that the coming generations can also learn about our history and our glory.
—Suramya AgArwal,
CLASS VII-C

History facing extinction
A few days ago,when our school took us to the ASI Heritage Museum,we saw the heritage of India in ruins.

We saw beautiful buildings’ walls full of posters,banners and hoardings,which took away their beauty and glory. All of us were ashamed,as we are the ones who have destroyed our heritage by scribbling on the walls of beautiful buildings,sticking posters on them,urinating and spitting on them,which cause damage.

There is no point in defacing our monuments just for the sake of fun as we do not achieve anything,and in turn destroy the beauty of the monuments. Similarly,by sticking posters of films,etc. we are only chalking a path towards their extinction.

The proof of this is that today in Delhi,there are so many monuments that we are not even aware of.

We know only of certain prominent monuments in India,such as the Taj Mahal,as they have been preserved well till today.

We all took a pledge there that we will never destroy the heritage of India.
— Harshda Verma
CLASS VII-B

My experience at ASI Museum
The visit to the Children’s Museum was a very important visit for us — the youngsters of the present generation. It was a beautiful way of expressing the decline and depletion of our heritage and monuments.

We went to a room called ‘Delhi’s Past -Present’ exhibition. We saw pictures of many monuments,some which we already knew about and some whose names also we haven’t come across. We saw them through paintings made by specialised artists.

Later on,we went to the second section ‘The Astitva’. In this section,we learnt a lot about how people are destroying our heritage and our monuments. The room was created with a lot of imagination and skills. As soon as I entered the room,I felt we were in a dirty and filthy area where people have scribbled on the walls and stuck bills.

This room also contained items that that depicted earlier times,for example a charpoy and an old tea shop — these things show that Delhi has lost its old culture and heritage.

On the other side of the room I saw rusted garage shelters and dirty roads that tells us that Delhi is not as clean now as it used to be before. We were all guilty and ashamed of ourselves.

A guide from the museum — Prem Singh had a fun quiz in store for us about the names of old monuments.

Later,all of us took a pledge that we all will not destroy the monuments and our culture and take good care of them.
— Ravi Kaushik
Class VII-B

The glories of our past
Yesterday,we were taken to the ASI Heritage Museum. There we got to know about our past and observed how people are misusing our monuments and are attaching no importance to them.

These monuments are the only relics that tell us about the lives of emperors of ancient times,the architecture and customs of people. People visit these monuments and scratch and destroy it. These people never realise what harm they are causing to the hard work of our ancestors and our heritage.

I would like to make an appeal to all readers to save our past.
— Gunjan sandhani
CLASS Vii-c

We invite schools to be a part of this Express Group initiative. For queries mail to heritagewalks@expressindia.com