What Treasures Lie Here

It is typical of the museum culture of this country that we actually believe that we can learn to be museologists while ‘on the job’. No wonder most people find museum-going in India very boring and prefer to stay away.

A temporary exhibition in a museum, on the other hand, receives a great deal of publicity and revives curiosity. Its display therefore becomes important while the spider has to be at its beguiling best, luring thousands into its parlour. If the Nizam’s jewels sparkled at the National Museum in the Capital many months ago, it was because of their intrinsic quality and lustre. The exhibition drew crowds because no one had seen such jewels before. The display otherwise was shoddy and the lighting ineffective and unimaginative. The accompanying text was neither clear nor precise.

The exhibition of these jewels at the Salarjung Museum in Hyderabad justified the historic value and aesthetic worth of the collection. It was an example of how the public can be visually and intellectually satisfied, depending, of course, on individual levels of receptivity. Small silk cushions were artfully arranged in the show windows with the jewels set around them suggestive of the languid lifestyle of those who wore them. Optic lights focused precisely on them adding wickedness to their glitter.

Photographs borrowed from Raja Deen Dayal’s family showed different members of the royal family wearing the exhibited jewels. The various texts, dealing with the Nizams, their achievements, wealth and jewels were quite relevant. It is time for the sleeping museums of India to awaken and rejoice in the treasures that they contain.