A museum of treasures and trinkets

Once you have seen the parks and beaches, the temples and churches of Mangaluru, head to the Sreemanthibai Museum. Though it is situated in the heart of the city, this elegant edifice is easy to miss, as it is tucked away from the main road. Standing serenely atop a hillock, the museum commands a panoramic view of the city. Photography is forbidden, but one can take pictures of the artefacts outside.

The exhibits, which are housed in spacious halls on two floors, were formerly owned by Colonel V R Mirajkar. That distinguished doctor, who served in Lahore during World War II, eventually returned to Mangaluru (then Mangalore). He had earlier built a house inspired by buildings he admired in Italy.

While the local population refers to the museum as ‘Mirajkar Bungalow’, the Colonel named it after his mother, whose portrait and other paintings adorn the room near the entrance. In 1955, ten years after the death of Sreemanthibai, Colonel Mirajkar donated his home to the government.

He handed it over along with treasures from different parts of India and the world that he had amassed over the years. They include an elaborately carved wooden chest from Kashmir, which the Colonel used on his travels.

The Colonel’s collection

This is only one of several exquisite pieces — screens, panels and larger pieces of furniture — made of wood, glass, porcelain, metal, stone and silver, from all over the globe. Denmark, England, China, Japan and Czechoslovakia are just a few of the countries represented here, through a bewildering variety of works of art. Admittedly, some of the objects might not be popular with animal-rights activists — notably a camel-leather vase, giraffe-bone walking stick, rhino-foot ashtray and deer-horn stand, not to mention several ivory curios.

Many of these items that are displayed on the upper storey are impressive, especially the vintage clocks, inlaid boxes, cigarette lighters, musical instruments and a miniature set of Shakespeare’s plays. The real antiques, however, are on the ground floor-- 16th-century lampstands, incense burners, temple bells and innumerable sculptures of deities are in evidence.

So too are suits of armour and weapons of war. There are even tools and utensils that go back further, to Paleolithic and Neolithic times. Also of interest are replicas of seals, unearthed from the excavated ruins of the Indus Valley Civilisation.

A remarkable aspect of the Sreemanthibai Museum is a gallery dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi. There are rare photographs of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as a boy with his father and as a teenager with his bride. The Mahatma is seen in the company of prominent personalities such as Rabindranath Tagore, Sardar Patel Jawaharlal Nehru and Louis Mountbatten.

Close at hand is a delightful toy section. One wonders, though, whether the colourful assortment of dolls, puppets, animal figurines and models of ships and aeroplanes would appeal to the sophisticated children of today. Still, there is undoubtedly a great deal to attract both young and old at Mangaluru’s Sreemanthibai Museum.