Collect a slice of history!

From Vishwanathan Anand's iconic gold medal to the first copy of Filmfare and a museum for utensils, can memorabilia become popular culture? Anuradha Varma explores  

 

Not long ago, Indians felt a surge of pride as liquor baron Vijay Mallya brought back Gandhi memorabilia that included his round-rimmed spectacles after paying Rs 9.3 crore at an auction in New York. Before this, he had also bid for and won the sword of Tipu Sultan at a London auction for Rs 4 crore.
 

Besides such venerable pieces of public history, there are other items too that can make it into the annals of popular culture, from sports memorabilia to Bollywood pinups.
 

Actor Rahul Bose recently collected 25 items for an auction by his NGO The Foundation. Luckily for him, chess legend Vishwanathan Anand parted with his 2008 World Chess Championship medal, Abhinav Bindra with the air gun he used to break Olympic records, Saina Nehwal with an Indian Open gold medal among others. Rahul says, “I met Anand for the first time and he parted with his medal; Saina is the most compassionate person I have ever met.”
 

Memorabilia comes in many forms, from a hotelier dedicating a museum to utensils, a bureaucrat finding time to create a storehouse of rare, unreleased songs to a nine-year-old boy collecting issues of Filmfare till he reaches a ripe old age. Recalls 75-year-old Devkishin Vyas, who saw the first Filmfare magazine at a railway station bookshop in 1952, “I liked the cover, which had Kamini Kaushal on it. It cost eight annas then. Since then, I buy two copies of the magazine – one for reading and the other for storing.”
 

Writer and journalist Andrew Whitehead collects political pamphlets, lapel badges and other memorabilia. He says, “One day, in Hauz Khas (Delhi), I came across a slightly battered film poster for Heer Ranjha. I bought it. My mother-in-law said if I had paid more than Rs 2, I was mad. I had actually paid Rs 500. That’s cheaper than any modern art, and it gives me much more pleasure.” It’s important, he believes, for a society to remember where it’s coming from, however quickly it’s moving forward.
 

That’s perhaps what prompts Pankaj Rag, the director of the Film and Television Institute of India, to collect unreleased film music. His collection contains hundreds of unreleased songs of Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Mohammad Rafi, Talat Mehmood and Mukesh. He says, “It has been a passion since I was in college. Among them is Mukesh’s Badi Khoobsoorat Zindagi from the 1972 film Pasand Apni Apni, which is not easily available.”
 

Hotelier Vithal Kamath has also fuelled his passion with a museum dedicated to traditional artifacts, jewellery and household utensils. The museum is housed within Jadhavgad, a 300-year-old fort near Pune. Says Vithal says, “I have been collecting for the last 49 years and I have over 36,000 pieces of antiquity, several gifted by housewives all over India and maharajas. I even have vessels that are 300-year-old. When I discover a new piece, it’s like meeting an old friend and my heart says, ‘Tujhe banaya gaya hai mere liye!’”

 
While international pop icon Britney Spears’ chewing gum can fetch bids online and any collectible related to Elvis Presley and Madonna can send fans into raptures, the culture is still picking up in India. Last year, television show Tere Mere Beach Mein hosted by filmmaker Farah Khan, had celebrities putting up their personal items for a charity auction online. Deepa Thomas of Ebay India says, “Fans want something they can display in their living room or even wear.” A script for the film Jab We Met signed by director Imtiaz Ali fetched Rs 12,300 and Sachin Tendulkar’s cricket bat went for Rs 3,50,000.
 
How about putting up such memorabilia for popular culture for public viewing at a museum? Says conservation architect Vikas Dilawari, “Munshi Premchand and Rudyard Kipling’s houses are lying neglected. Why not convert them into museums for local people to take care of?”
 
Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, managing trustee and honorary director of Mumbai’s Bhau Daji Lad Museum favours getting corporate funding to revamp museums. She says, “We asked the heritage committee for the home where Mulk Raj Anand stayed to be converted into a museum, but it was sold because of greed for real estate.”
 
From first editions of comics to posters of your favourite film and signed copies of sports memorabilia, connections with the past can prove valuable and make for interesting memories!

(The article was originally published in Times Life, Times of India's Sunday supplement)