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Delhi lost a childhood treasure in museum fire

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Neha Sinha
Neha SinhaApr 26, 2016 | 15:53

Delhi lost a childhood treasure in museum fire

You turned off from a flowering roundabout and entered the museum, and there he was: a grey, life-size, towering, glowering Tyrannosaurus Rex, mouth open, showing rows of jagged teeth. The teeth seemed to drip from his big mouth. The T-Rex was by no means reassuring; there was menace in his claws, his long, winding tail and his open mouth. Was that mouth open to make a sort of tiger roar? Was it open to bite off a living hunk of meat?

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Was it open to say a rather amused welcome to the little men and women under him? These were the very valid questions in my mind as a child. No cuddly pandas or smiling wolves: the T-Rex was a magnificent guard (guardian angel may be a stretch of imagination) to Delhi' National Museum of Natural History.

Standing at the historic, quaint epicentre of arts and culture at the Mandi House roundabout, this small museum has meant enchanted mornings and afternoons for many. Yesterday, most of it was burnt down in a fire. Six firemen were injured badly in trying to control the massive fire.

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Author with the rhino at the museum.

As an adult and disciple of conservation biology, I understand today how that intimidating-Rex is such a good initiation into the world of natural history. Nature is beautiful, and in equal parts terrifying. Running down from my father's government office on Ferozeshah road, I visited the museum scores of times; I went as an awe-struck, small, slightly scared child; and I would return as a slightly more aware, yet equally enamoured adult.

Touch and feel

On the ground floor of the museum stood an Indian rhino. He was huge and an exact replica; long before I saw my first real rhinos in Kaziranga, my friends would say - oh so is that what a rhino is really like? Funny horn, folds on his legs, a beady eye that appeared alive, a sense of an aged animal. A display on the solar system near the rhino was decidedly wonky (one of the planets looked like a plastic ball), but it showed us how Earth is really quite small. From a one-horned rhino that looked like a dinosaur; to a dinosaur that was definitely extinct, to remain only in the world as a grey statue; the museum encouraged tactile feel much before interactive, electric displays became fashionable.

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Exhibits (on the right) destroyed in the fire.

Going up the stairs, there was real fossil, one that glowed in the dark, placed at the centre of the room and within arms-reach. It was craggy, and seemed infinite in its possibilities. After being told hundreds of times to not touch things, keep my knees off stools, elbows off tables, and fingers off glass, how was I allowed to touch this part of the universe? This bit of Carbon which stood for so much history? It's because my touching would not harm it; it was older than me. That is actually what the museum attendant once told me.

Down the hall, there were stuffed animals and animal models. A leopard looked down from a tree branch, in crouch mode. It was placed outside glass fronted displays, a real, unlit, thrilling surprise. Much like how you may encounter a leopard in a forest; with it looking at you from between leaves of a tree. An eagle pounced on its prey. A big cat ate its deer-victim. A sloth bear, the Baloo of Jungle book, seemed to shamble along.

The displays seemed real because they were solid, a little old-fashioned, unaided by technology.

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Fire audit

And now, most of this museum is gone. The obvious question is: how have we allowed our national assets - places where children gather - to be such tinder boxes? In India's 40 degree plus heat, many areas are under fire. The lower slopes of the Himalayas - Corbett tiger reserves, Sat Tal, among other hillsides, have been burning for days. Sometimes, these fires are caused by cigarette stubs and garbage burning and they ravage entire hills or forests. Sometimes, they start by themselves, with dry, fallen leaves as kindle.

But in the urban jungle, you don't have masses of leaves waiting to catch fire as the sun pours down from the sky. Here, it is usually faulty wiring, a short circuit, a bad or absent fire prevention system.

Delhi's cavernous office buildings have often caught fire - one recent fire gutted storeys of files in the environment ministry. Yet, glaringly, obviously, these fires are preventable. We have to ask today: what disaster-proof mechanisms do our public spaces have?

Environment minister Prakash Javadekar visited the museum today, he called the fire tragic; and the museum a natural treasure whose loss cannot be quantified. He called for a fire audit of this as well as 34 other museums under his ministry.

I wish I could say that it was enough. But to know that one's childhood friends are gone - friends who were much older, holding the secrets of the universe, appearing indestructible in their reality - the feeling that they are gone forever - that feeling itself is not fireproof.

Are memories fireproof?

Last updated: April 26, 2016 | 19:54
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