Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya has organised a special three-day trip for tribal students of Betul district. The special trip being organised is under ‘Special visit of Tribal students’, a programme of IGRMS.
This year 50 students including 19 girls and 31 boys from Government Hostel, Betul are visiting Manav Sangrahalaya, where all arrangements (including food and lodging) has been arrangements by IGRMS. Students visited Himalayan Village, Rock Art Shelter, Mythological Trail, Vethi Sankul, Tribal Habitat, Avriti Bhawan, coastal village and understood the details of anthropology.
The escort, Rajesh Dixit met Prof Sarit Kumar Chaudhuri, Director, IGRMS and thanked him for the invitation for such an educational trip. Students were accompanied by Garima Anand, Musuem Associate, she answered all the queries of the students.
Bhopal witnessed the first pottery tower in Manav Sangrahalaya Prof Sarit Kumar Chaudhuri, Director, Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya, Bhopal today dedicated to visitors the newly built Manipur’s pottery tower (Kumhei Shaktak Phuron) and traditional Kiln (Peghali) of Majuli Island, Assam in Pottery Traditions of India open air exhibition.
On this occasion, traditional artisans from four villages of Manipur and from Majuli Island Assam performed rituals prior to inauguration of the tower and traditional Kiln in IGRMS. These developments are part of Pottery Tradition in India, a potter’s trail exhibition taking shape in Manav Sangrahalaya.
The present structure referred to as the Kumhei Shaktak Phuron (festive tower of pots) by the Meiteis comes from the Andro potter’s village of Manipur. Pottery craft in this village is practiced only by married women and they endorse discrete social belief and practices, breaching of which is a serious offence.
“Phuron is an expression of fertility and prosperity. We worship Goddess Shinu leima who first taught our community to prepare pots. It is her blessings that we prepare beautiful pots”, says a senior potter from Andro.