I try to visit amritsar once every year to spend some time at the Golden Temple.
Whether it is sitting on the marble banks of the temple tank (the city gets its name from this water body — Amrit Sarovar — or the sacred pool), listening to kirtans, praying within the bejewelled sanctum sanctorum, partaking in the langar, or witnessing the return of the night palki of the Guru Granth Sahib back to its resting place in the akal Takht, I find that there is such sukoon here. Now, after my private preview of the Partition Museum that’s a work in progress, I have found one more reason to love the city, and to keep coming back.
I first heard of the museum last year when its co-founder and CEO Mallika ahluwalia came up to me and started chatting at a FICCI summit on the creative industries that we were both a part of. I had been talking on stage about the pop-up museums I had curated in the past in Vikhroli, Mumbai. Mallika shared that she was in fact building a permanent museum in amritsar and invited me to visit, and so here I am, some months later, swirling a buttery kulcha around a plate of piping-hot channa at the famous Brothers Dhaba, while discussing love, life and partition narratives with her.
Some hours earlier, I am awestruck as I encounter the imposing facade of the Town Hall, in which the Partition Museum will be housed once finished. Right now, a small section with four galleries is open to the public while the other rooms are getting ready. By the end of this year, the museum will expand to 10 galleries spread over two floors, a giftshop, an events space and an archiving centre.
Bu hikaye Verve dergisinin May 2017 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Verve dergisinin May 2017 sayısından alınmıştır.
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