Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum

Tucked away in a old part of Pune is this delightful, eclectic museum of "Everyday Traditional Art". I had visited this museum the last time I was in Pune (October 2013, see this blog post), but now that I'm much more familiar with India, I wanted a second viewing.

The museum is difficult to find. A parking space is even more difficult. Google maps did a great job of locating the museum, but a miserable job on directions for the last few blocks -- directed us down impassable "gullies" (alleys). I finally got out of the car and walked the last block.

The museum is made up of about 9 galleries (depending upon what you count as a separate gallery) that winds up one side of an old house, then down the other side. Each gallery mostly has a theme, but it's not strictly adhered to. I took almost 100 photos: hand-held in dim light behind glass that wasn't the cleanest (but very good by Indian standards). Documentation is generally not very specific, and English translations can be interesting (crochet = croshay).

The first gallery mostly displayed objects used for grooming and beauty (combs, perfume bottles, and such). But also a few larger items.

This is a "Wheel of Zodiacal Signs". The Zodiac constellations have Sanskrit names (obviously), but the constellations are the same as astrologers use from Europe to north Africa to south Asia.

Next came one of my favorites: kitchen items. I could fill a whole post with photos from this room, but I'll limit myself to just one.

These are vegetable cutters. I now know that in India, the knife is held vertically, the cook sits on the board and draws the vegetables to be cut past the knife. I guess this makes more sense when you don't have a table to chop on.

The next gallery is "special exhibitions", which really seemed more of a "miscellaneous" and too big to fit elsewhere. I'll post a few things from here when I get to Ganesha. The following gallery is another of my favorites: textiles. It mostly held textiles from Gujarat, but also interesting puppets from south India. Another gallery that could fill a whole blog post in itself.

This is a 4 or 5 foot tall horse made of patchwork textiles. I'm not sure what it was used for (decor? toy?).

Next comes the (oil) lamp gallery. Hundreds of standing lamps, hanging lamps, little lamps, lamp arches. It's no wonder oil was needed in huge quantities! This is also where the large collection of "erotic nut-cutters" was found. I'll leave that to your imagination, but they were definitely R-rated!

The musical instrument gallery is one that the museum is noted for. India has an impressive selection of stringed instruments, with many variations on each. They frequently have an animal form.

This harp was identified as a "yaaz", but Wikipedia calls it a "yazh". Regardless, it's interesting!

A peacock sitar.

The final gallery is in two parts. The first is a collection of ivory objects; the second is a collection of antique front doors, including two made of ivory.

Detail from an ivory door.

And finally… Ganesha (the elephant-headed god) is a particular favorite in Maharashtra, and even more so in Pune. Here is a collection of Ganesha art from throughout the museum.

Ganesha's official vehicle is a rat. Usually the rat is represented by a small figure in front of Ganesha, but here the rat is large enough to ride.

Here Ganesha is riding an elephant.

Dancing Ganesha

Another dancing Ganesha.