Monks, Traders and Travellers

The exhibition focuses on trade and the movement of people, goods and ideas in the Himalaya. Photographs and text on Indian travellers and pilgrims; and western explorers by Deb Mukharji; text and photographs by Chhaya Bhattacharya Haesner on the interactions between Kashmir, Ladakh and Khotan; artifacts, objects of trade from the collection of Kargil Museum; salt traders of Kumaon by Manju Kak; and trading families of Kalimpong by Vidura Jang Bahadur

 

Inauguration on Thursday 18 December 2014 at 18:30

 

As part of this exhibition, the following programmes will be organised in the Art Gallery

 

TALK: 23 DECEMBER 2014 AT 18:30

Intimate Artistic Links Between the Art of Ladakh and Central Asia with Special Reference to Alchi and Khotan Respectively

Illustrated lecture by Dr. Chhaya Bhattacharya Haesner, expert on Central Asian Art and Tagore National Fellowship Awardee, National Museum 

 

FILM AND TALK: 26 DECEMBER 2014 AT 18:30

They Who Walked Mountains (34 min; 2002; dvd; English & with subtitles)

Directed by Manju Kak who will introduce the film

 

For centuries the Bhotias traded with Tibet using routes that cut through the western and eastern passes of the Himalayas; snaking through the valleys of the fast flowing Gori river, across the treacherous Untadhura and Kingri Bingri passes at 19, 000 feet high. In 1962, these passes were closed following the Indo-Chinese war – trade came to an end and with it a centuries old culture that had bonded the Tibetan and Bhotia communities in familial friendships. This film captures some of those memories of the legendary traders

 

Munshi Aziz Bhat Museum of Central Asian and Kargil Trade Artifacts

Speaker: Shri Muzammil Hussain Munshi, Director – Outreach, Resource and Design of the museum

 

In Conversation 

with Krishen Khanna, eminent artist

 

Moderator: Shri Ashok Vajpeyi

The Queen’s Step Well – World Heritage Site of Rani ki Vav in Gujarat

Speaker:  Mr K. C. Nauriyal, Superintending Archaeologist, Archaeological Survey of India

 

Chair: Dr. B.R. Mani, ADG, Archaeological Survey of India

 

Rani-ki-Vav or the Queen’s step-well is a subterranean temple and marvel of human endeavour in the fields of architecture and sculpture. Located on the outskirts of Patan in North Gujarat, it was built in about 1050 CE by Queen Udayamati  in memory of her husband, the founder of the Solanki dynasty, and is the most elaborately constructed and richly embellished step-well encountered to date. It was declared a World Heritage Site in June 2014. The presentation will discuss both the splendour of the monument as well as  the process of documenting and recording the structure for preparing  the dossier for nomination 

 

An exhibition of ceramic creations – flora, fauna and cityscapes

By Sharmishtha Roy

 

Inauguration by Smt. Ira Chaudhuri, eminent ceramist/potter on Tuesday, 16th December 2014 at 18.30

 

Medicine – Stranger than Fiction!

Keynote Speaker: Dr Naresh Gupta, Director-Professor, Maulana Azad Medical College & Associated Hospitals and Chairman, Advisory Group, Consumers India 

 

Panelists: Dr. Vinay Kamble, former Director, Vigyan Prasar, Department of Science & Technology, GOI; Dr.  Ravinder Goswami, Professor & Head of the Department, Endocrinology, AIIMS, New Delhi; Dr.  Sandeep Garg, Professor of Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College & Associated Hospitals; and Dr.  Jayashree Gupta, President, Consumers India

 

The New Metropolis: Nehru and the Aftermath

Speaker: Shri Romi Khosla, well known architect

 

Chair: Shri Ram Rahman

Panelists: Nandita Bhavnani on Minorities, Property and Displacement: The Sindhi Hindu Experience of Partition

Rita Kothari on Partition in the Western Regions, India

Tarun K. Saint on Some Observations on the Representation of Trauma in Selected Writings About the Sindhi Experience of Partition

Priya Kumar on Home and Diasporic Consciousness in Qurratulain Hyder’s “Sita Betrayed and Kamila Shamsie's Kartography

Rakshanda Jalil on Karachi: Beyond Lies the Sea

Part of the seminar organised by The Department of English, University of Delhi – UGC/DSA III Seminar

Centre for Studies in Violence, Memory and Trauma

Health Culture as Continuity

Speaker: Smt Ritu Priya Mehrotra, Associate Professor, Centre for Social Medicine, JNU

 

The Plunder of India's Past

Speaker: Dr. Kirit Mankodi, author of The Queen’s Stepwell at Patan who is associated with a Project for Indian Cultural Studies founded by Franco-Indian Pharmaceuticals, Private, Ltd., Mumbai 

 

Chair: Shri B.M. Pande

 

The lecture will consider the loss of India's sculptural heritage through the illegal export of antiquities. This will be done with the help of visuals from such monuments as Atru, Nagda, Bharhut, Patan and others. Some cases where repatriation of smuggled sculptures was possible will also be mentioned