A rare museum with a unique concept was inaugurated in Sopore, 40 km from Srinagar. The museum will showcase the lifetime collection of a female Kashmiri educationist, Atiqa Bano, who managed to create a huge repository of artefact through door-to-door collections.
Ms. Saima Iqbal,Principal conservation architect at the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and her team, mainly women professionals, have come together not to let the artefacts die in oblivion. The team has made the daunting task possible. Bano has collected a whopping 8,000 artefacts – ranging from kitchen utensils to agricultural tools, clothing, earthenware and manuscripts. The collection includes donations from Kashmiri Pandit families of old-style earthen puja thalis and wooden palanquins with god and goddess.
The Aliph Foundation, an international organisation involved in protecting cultural heritage, has approved grants for the e-museum as part of their post-COVID rehabilitation programme.
Bano died at the age of 77 in 2017, served at different teaching posts across several districts of Kashmir and dedicated her life to collecting artefacts from locals across the length and breadth of the Valley. However, her death due to cancer almost brought the curtains down on her dream project.
Source : The Hindu
