After returning from the Agha Khan Palace, I became more interested to dig into Indian history. The best option was to visit the museum. I heard about the Raja Dinkar Kelkar museum. So I made a phone call to the place and confirmed the timings of the visit. It is located in the heart of the city. Hence, I hired a rickshaw to the museum.
I reached there on time and headed towards the main entry. I asked for a guide. I was surprised to know that the museum has a rich history behind. The museum has about 20,000 different articles which are personally collected by Baba Kelkar. His son died at the age of seven. So he decided to build a museum in his remembrance.
The museum enclosed the entire collection of Baba Kelkar which also comprised of research and storage facilities and the Institute of Musicology and fine arts. I reached the ground floor where there was a nice display of household vessels of 18th and 19th century made of materials such as terracotta, copper and brass. They were brought from different places like Kerala, Gujarat, and Maharashtra.
I went to another floor. There I saw a complete collection of idols of Shri Ganesha, Shiva and Parvati. There were paintings which showed scenes from the Ramayana. The paintings on manuscripts were also on display. There were also armours which were made up of fish scales, and crocodile skin, pistols, long barrelled muskets, daggers, shields, swords and small cannons.
In the eighteenth century, the kings had a rich and tasteful lifestyle. All these were portrayed in the museum. Not only this, there were intrinsic designs too which witnessed the brilliance of art and culture of that age. Music lovers will never get bored in the museum. There was an exclusive collection of typical musical instruments of ancient age which included personal instruments by famous music personalities. Tortoise shaped veena and a gramophone of early 20th century could also be seen there.
I was least interested to leave the place. My thirst to dig history was still at its threshold. But the museum was about to close in the evening. So, I had to call it a day.