‘WITHOUT A DOUBT IT HAS BEEN THE MOST DIFFICULT HUNDRED. THERE WASN’T A DAY I WASN’T REMINDED OF IT,’
For a one-armed woman with a chipped nose, this Yakshi sure is popular. It helps that the rest of her five-foot-two-inch frame is beautiful, and that she comes with a colourful history. Yakshis are the mythical attendees of Kubera, the Hindu god of wealth. This statue dates from the 1st or 2nd century BC.
The statue was found jutting out of the muddy bank of the Ganga, near Patna, in 1917. But popular lore has it that dhobis had washed their clothes on its upturned base for years before a snake led local villagers to it. When the stone slab was yanked out of the bank to catch the snake, the artefact was revealed.
The Yakshi, who used to be the star attraction at the Patna Museum, is famous for her delicate details and mirror-like polish. She’s travelled abroad, showing the world what constituted craftsmanship and beauty in ancient India. See it here: The Bihar Museum’s Historical Art
Gallery, which opens soon. The sprawling Viraat-E-Khalsa museum of Sikh history uses realistic motorised puppets, gigantic murals, film projections and 3D paintings to tell its stories. This double panorama depicts the coronation of
in 1801, a move that unified local clans and helped forge Sikh identity under what came to be called the Sikh Empire (1799-1849).
Records of the time describe Singh’s court as lavish. The museum display is similarly breathtaking. The illuminated backdrop creates a film-set effect, while the panorama walls act as a screen – a horse moving on one wall disappears, only to seamlessly emerge on the other. See it here: The Viraat-E-Khalsa Museum in Anandpur Sahib, Punjab. See it here: If this coat could tell a story, it would be one of a world that was connected long before globalisation. The material is velvet, a fabric that originated in Baghdad, but features a Western collar. The bird-andvine filled pattern is evocative of
Kashmiri embroidery; the zardosi and sequins are typical of Surat; the crescents at the edges are auspicious symbols for Zoroastrians.
It’s a small garment, meant for a Parsi boy’s Navjote, a ceremony in which a child who has completed seven years is initiated into the Zoroastrian religion. The coat has told its tale well beyond the museum’s borders – it was part of Libaas, a show of Indian costumes at the National Museum in Riyadh in 2002. It was also featured in Zoroastrian Tapestry, a lavish coffee-table book about Parsi dressing, in 2003.
See it here: At the Textiles Gallery, which opened at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj museum in Mumbai a year ago.