A Tale of Two Museums

Shaping cultural spaces in Leh and Kargil

01 April 2018
Objects on display at the museum in Kargil include a portable knife used by traders, a handmade matchlock gun used for hunting and flint known as “chamak.”
COURTESY MUNSHI AZIZ BHAT MUSEUM OF CENTRAL ASIAN AND KARGIL TRADE ARTIFACTS
Objects on display at the museum in Kargil include a portable knife used by traders, a handmade matchlock gun used for hunting and flint known as “chamak.”
COURTESY MUNSHI AZIZ BHAT MUSEUM OF CENTRAL ASIAN AND KARGIL TRADE ARTIFACTS

In 2001, a large collection of artefacts from the trans-Himalayan caravan trade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were discovered in a dilapidated serai in Kargil’s Old Bazaar. It did not immediately occur to the owners—the Bhats, a prominent family in Kargil—to build a museum to house them.

The Bhats had lived in the city for four generations, working in the fields of politics, commerce and welfare. But it took three years, some debate and a few coincidences for the Munshi Aziz Bhat Museum of Central Asian and Kargil Trade Artefacts to open to the public. The curator, Aijaz Hussain Munshi, told me when we met in June 2017 in Kargil that the family had nearly forgotten its role in the caravan trade until his older brother, Munshi Abdur Rehman, decided to dismantle the old serai and build a new market for his sons. “While the workers were taking the structure apart, a mason stumbled across a turquoise stone,” he said. “The man brought it to my father, Munshi Habibullah, who lauded the mason for his honesty and asked him to keep it for his daughter’s wedding. After this, we all went to the serai and dug out boxes after boxes of artefacts.”

Objects on display at the museum in Kargil include a portable knife used by traders, a handmade matchlock gun used for hunting and flint known as “chamak.”. COURTESY MUNSHI AZIZ BHAT MUSEUM OF CENTRAL ASIAN AND KARGIL TRADE ARTIFACTS Objects on display at the museum in Kargil include a portable knife used by traders, a handmade matchlock gun used for hunting and flint known as “chamak.”. COURTESY MUNSHI AZIZ BHAT MUSEUM OF CENTRAL ASIAN AND KARGIL TRADE ARTIFACTS
Objects on display at the museum in Kargil include a portable knife used by traders, a handmade matchlock gun used for hunting and flint known as “chamak.”
COURTESY MUNSHI AZIZ BHAT MUSEUM OF CENTRAL ASIAN AND KARGIL TRADE ARTIFACTS

Shailza Rai is a freelance writer who has worked in museum planning, publishing  and the arts. She is currently developing an arts-based learning module for children and young adults.

Keywords: culture trade Leh museums artefacts Central Asia
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