Pune - Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum

Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum is located in a narrow lane in Shukrawar Peth area in Pune so it was a wise decision by Pooja to take an auto to visit it. The one man collection of Dr DG Kelkar (1896-1990), an optician, poet and art collector, who started collecting artifacts since 1920, grew to contain 22, 000 artifacts. Of the collection about 2500 are on display. 

Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum

3 storeyed museum

Most impressive of the lot is the partial recreation of Mastani Mahal from the actual Mahal of Mastani (of Bajirao Mastani fame) that was constructed in Kothrud for her.

Old doorways

Yalis

We enter the three storey building after buying tickets and immediately come across old doors, windows of a long gone era, huge in size with carvings to the left. The museum contains lamps, palanquins, wood carvings, miniature paintings, musical instruments, figurines, metal ware, arms and armoury, textiles, kitchen utensils and so on.

Wooden gallery

Wooden gallery

Swords

We wound our way as per the instructions and went past the Gujarat Gallery, the Textile Gallery, Lamps Gallery, Bronzes, Tambool, Puppets and so on. The prominent works of Pandit Abhijeet Joshi are displayed here. The musical wing is called Chandrashekhar Agashe Museum Wing. One of the last wings is that of Mastani Mahal where a hall has been recreated with artifacts from her palace.

Painting on a palm leaf

Fish scale armour

Erotic Nut-Cutters

Dr Kelkar named the museum Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum after his son Raja who passed away at an early age. The museum was established in 1962 though the collection was started around 1920 and in 1992, Dr Kelkar donated the collection to the Government of Maharashtra.

Taus

Veena - Tortoise

Magar Yazz

Kumar Gandharva and to the right the Sarinda of PL Deshpande

After spending a couple of hours inside the museum we came across the Director's Office and I could not but stop by and say hello to Mr Sudhanva Ranade, the grandson of Dr Kelkar. I told him how much I enjoyed visiting the museum and he asked me to spread the word. 

Mastani Mahal (with Mastani's portrait)

I also asked him where the original Mastani Mahal had been located and he said that it was right where the Mrutyunjeshwar Temple on Karve Road near Mayur Colony was. It is a popular temple and I decided to pop in next time.

Mastani Mahal recreation

Post the museum we (Pooja, Prarthana, Anjali and I) walked down to Sujata Mastani - there is a popular drink (somewhat like a falooda but without the gooey stuff) called Mastani of which the mango flavour is most popular - and we split a couple between us four. 

Then we hired autos and went off homeward.