Swati Sengupta, TNN Dec 5, 2011, 05.20AM IST
KOLKATA: By next January, Bengal will be able to boast of three new museums covering as diverse areas as Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das to documenting vibrant tribal art and varied brews of tea. Two of these museums will be in Darjeeling while the third one in Jhargram.
The tribal areas of Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore being one of the focus areas of the government, the state is now setting up a museum, on a sprawling 15,000 sq ft, in Jhargram that will showcase arts and crafts of these three districts.
There will be pats and scroll paintings made by patuas, dokra art made of metal casts, masks - especially the Chhau masks - terracotta, tussar, stone carving, wood curving, mats and so on. Not only will it give the tourism industry a boost, but also lend a huge financial impetus to the local people, whom the state wants to woo especially after joint operations against the Maoists have been stepped up.
While the tribal arts and crafts museum will be a permanent feature, craft melas would be held there off and on. The Jhargram festival will be held between January 11 and 12 and the museum will be inaugurated shortly after that, said an official.
In another part of the state - Darjeeling - two very different kinds of museum are coming up.
Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das - a famous patriot of India - died in the Darjeeling house called "Step Aside", on June 16, 1925. The house, a three-minute walk from Chowrasta, will be turned into a museum with the initiative of the state tourism department.
Mahatma Gandhi had visited CR Das in this house. Such information and more about the significant role Das played in helping India earn Swaraj will be placed in the house. There are several personal memorabilia at the moment which are being put to no use. But if the place is made into a full-fledged museum, it would help people know more about the gallant freedom-fighter.
The government has planned to spend Rs 41 lakh for the facelift of the house. Micro-films and photographs from archival sources have been researched and collected, and the tourism department is already working on it and will curate the museum, state tourism secretary Raghvendra Singh said on Sunday.
Another museum will be set up on tea. It will chronicle the setting up of the tea gardens in Darjeeling to its famous branding and what makes it one of the most coveted and prestigious brews in the world.
Darjeeling Tea was first planted in the early 1800s - its quality and flavour are said to be the result of the combined conditions of "climate, soil conditions, altitude and processing".
About 10 million kilograms of the tea is grown every year, spread over 17,500 hectares of land. After the enactment of Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration & Protection Act, 1999) in 2003, Darjeeling tea became the first Indian product to receive a GI tag, in 2004-05 through the Indian Patent Office.
All these and more information would be documented in the tea museum with an adjoining tea boutique that will have tea tasting and purchase counters of the tea appreciated by connoisseurs all over the world.
The state government has already invited expression of interest on the tea museum, and a meeting is scheduled with tea associations and experts on December 7. The museum will be set up on public-private initiative on a state government land near Darjeeling Chowrasta.
Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-12-05/kolkata/30477249_1_darjeeling-tea-tea-museum-tea-gardens