Museum in top gear

"If you can't come to the museum, the museum will come to you," says Sabyasachi Mukherjee, his voice booming as he relates the story of the touring bus for museum exhibits, an idea conceived of in 2010-11. "The central ministry of culture was kind enough to consider funding the bus for our Museum on Wheels," says the 50-year-old director general of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sanghralaya, or CSMVS as it is commonly referred to. "Touring exhibits are uncommon in India, and even if you do find them, they'd be in the realm of science... not so much for the arts and archaeology."

Mukherjee may sound modest, but many credit him for transforming CSMVS into a modern, tech-savvy institution. Under his leadership, the culture ministry's multi-crore grant for 'modernisation' has been the first in the museum's 90-year history. "The Museum on Wheels was part of this modernization, which included among other things overhauling the galleries, assimilating technology, refurbishing the building, landscaping and so on," says Bilwa Kulkarni, who heads the museum's education department. "Although the idea had originated earlier, work on the museum on wheels bus started in 2012. Once the chassis was finalized, we gave a plan to the design team for what we wanted in the bus."

Among the must-haves, informs Kulkarni, was a flexible design to allow for exhibits to change every six months. "We also wanted it to be a vibrant, interactive space not just inside but also outside. Plus, it had to have plenty of storage space, be sturdy and yet easy to manoeuvre."

The design team's task therefore encompassed a lot more than just the design. "The bus is the result of a lot of teamwork," says Abhishek Ray, principal architect at Matrika Design Collaborative, the firm that executed CSMVS' brief for the museum on wheels. "We roped in Aloke Chowdhury for the bus' mechanical engineering, Sandeep Gujjar did excellent engineering drawings and Kamlesh Shah was responsible for all the electrical engineering. In the end, the bus has turned out exactly as we had planned it."

Ray recalls that it was challenging to integrate the many technologies that were required. "This is not a run-of-the-mill project and since there was no ready reference for this sort of a bus in India, it was important that we set a benchmark," says Ray, who is currently busy working on the arms and armoury gallery at Amritsar's Gobindgarh Fort Museum and an upcoming textile museum in Shrujan, Bhuj.

"For instance, the bus is equipped for parallel activities. There's the main exhibit area inside the bus, which has tablets and multi-touch screens so students can learn about the displays in an interactive manner. There are exhibit-related activity kits that the curator can take out of the bus for visitors and students to engage with outside, the sides of the bus can be used as projection screens to play films and documentaries for those outside. But it is up to the curator to facilitate all this," he narrates.

Kulkarni points out that the Museum on Wheels will have two full-time facilitators to do just this — guide, engage and inform visitors. "Our first exhibition is on the Harappan civilization," he reveals, adding that the museum had commissioned two fellows from the Bangalore-based India Foundation for the Arts to map concepts that would lend to being exhibited on the bus. "While we will be taking original exhibits from the museum after due paperwork, we will also have replicas in some cases," she says.

With Citibank committing its support for the bus operations for three years, the Museum on Wheels will make its inaugural run in the third week of October. Based on requests it receives, the bus will visit schools in the northern suburbs and Thane region three days in a week. "We are also planning for the bus to go to a tribal school in Lonavla, and eventually to more schools in the neighbouring districts," says Kulkarni. Mukherjee is hopeful that after a year of operations, the bus will journey to the interior Maharashtra districts of Jalgaon, Dhule and so on. "The idea is to share our cultural heritage with as many people as possible," says Mukherjee.

For architect Ray, who describes the Museum on Wheels as a "dream project", the possibilities are endless. "The bus is an example of how design and engineering can transform the traditional notion of education and museum outreach. The Museum on Wheels is a tool to spread information and knowledge and have a larger impact," he says.