Foucault identified a Museum to be a site for “indefinitely accumulating time”, and Orhan Pamuk noticed that a museum and a novel written for archival value, both have the similar purpose -
“preservation, conservation and resistance to being forgotten”. The number of museums I have visited so far, few factors have been persistently common- the reigning silence of the hall or gallery, orderly presentation, meticulously categorized according to the historical time-period or artistic style. While I have paid a customary visit to a museum outside my hometown as part of the itinerary, like most of the tourists, my response has been primarily a passive one. A quick round in a museum hardly enables one to comprehend the underlying motive behind the archival endeavour. I met the tourists only while visiting the museums of the other cities such as - Shillong, Delhi and Goa. In my
own city Kolkata, the Indian Museum is not only the oldest, but also in my experience the largest one I have ever visited. I could hardly finish half of the galleries on my first visit. It seems at times that it would have been an enlightening experience to listen to an art critic or a historian to
contextualise the artefacts on display, as the briefly mentioned title and epoch rarely enables the historically ignorant visitor to ascertain the significance of the article. However, the long gallery
immaculately presented with a keen artistic sense evoked a contemplative mood in me. I could only
wonder how the artefacts once belonged to several kings, situated in several geographical places, found their way inside a museum. Frozen in time, losing the immediate cultural significance the
artefacts attempt to speak in a multitude of voices of their hidden past and unwritten story to which I can only response through my quietude.