Museums with authentic information presented in languages that can be grasped by visitors from different regions of a State, a country and the world at large are painstakingly set up but not patronised by tourists at large to the extent matching the effort and cost that go into them. The cases of Rail Museum, Folklore Museum, Regional Museum of Natural History, Sand Sculpture Museum, Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya, Melody World Wax Museum, R.K. Narayan’s House, Jaganmohan Palace Art Gallery, Adhyatmika Museum of Prajapitha Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya and others in Mysuru are bestowed far less prominence than the more visited destinations such as Mysuru Zoo, Ambavilas Palace of erstwhile Kings of the Wadiyar dynasty, Bandipur Tiger Reserve Sanctuary, Krishna Raja Sagar-Brindavan Gardens, St. Philomena’s Church, Chamundeshwari Temple at the hilltop and others in the tourism promotion literature produced by the Department of Tourism, Government of Karnataka. Similar muted propaganda for many valuable museums in different regions of the country can be gauged going by reports in the media flashing the huge numbers of foreign visitors at those destinations such as Taj Mahal, Goa beeches and so on.
The term museum piece, often used humorously for hinting someone old-fashioned, seems to be covering many formerly ubiquitous devices such as the radio, table-top computers, telephones connected by cable and with turning dials showing the numerical digits, not to forget the elderly in advanced age languishing in many families. Sections in the present generation cannot hide their sarcastic outlook towards these museum pieces as it were.
