Kashmir’s first e-museum to showcase door-to-door collection of a teacher 

Lifetime dedication of an ordinary woman living in a far-off rural pocket is beginning to bear fruit

Finally, a rare virtual museum from Sopore, 40 km from Srinagar, 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. She died at the age of 77 in 2017, leaving behind a collection that throws light on the life and customs of 18th and 19th Century rural Kashmir.  

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.

“We are hopeful that our efforts will create a comprehensive and interactive virtual museum of the artefacts, which will make Bano’s collections accessible to people across the world,” said Saima Iqbal, principal conservation architect at the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).

Bano 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, Meeras Mahal, where she wanted to set up Kashmir’s first community museum in Highland Colony at Sopore in a multi-storey building on land donated by her.

Ms. Iqbal and her team, mainly women professionals, have come together not to let the artefacts die in oblivion. The task is daunting though. 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 goddesses. 

Among other things, the collection has terracotta items from the 4th Century Kushan period, coins from pre-Islamic era and artefacts from the Buddhist period, which is likely to open a new gateway to understanding the life and times of Kashmir.