Urusvati Museum, Shikhopur – Celebrating Local Folklore

Trying to find cultural places in agriculture dominated Haryana is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. But then you can always expect life to throw some surprises up sometime. While doing an article on unusual museums in and around Delhi, I came across Urusvati museum, which is just on the outskirts of Gurgaon, less than 20 kms from IFFCO chowk towards Jaipur and only about a km off the national highway. This small hidden gem takes you through the romantic journey of many lovers through paintings and folk tales and acquaints you with the local culture away from the city chaos.

Housed in double storey building within a sprawling green patch of land, almost like an oasis in a desert , this farm house turned museum takes you far away from the city life and takes you through the folk life some real and some mythical. This museum was established in 2002 and is regularly used by schools to introduce children to various art forms and to provide a platform where artists can get together. Spread over 8000 Sq ft there is an ample space available for such activities.

As you enter the museum, you would see the traditional stories carved in Terracotta tablets which are put on the pillars of the front courtyard. Amongst others there are stories of Maharana Pratap, Mira Bai and her beloved Krishna. On some of the tablets, the potter has proudly put his signatures while others chose to be anonymous. There are paintings on some of the pillars depicting the love stories of the yesteryears. There is ample seating arrangement for you to sit and admire the lush green surroundings, which has a swimming pool, a well and an Ayurvedic garden. There are two walking paths, a walkway called Thandi Sadak and another called Gul Gulfam walk where you can walk surrounded by the tall silver oak trees, with a distant feeling of being in Kashmir.

On the wall of the front courtyard is Sanjhi, a folk art form, rooted in the local beliefs and culture. This is something that took me to my childhood, when my grandmother used to put Sanjhi on the walls of our ancestral home in Punjab, before Dussehra. Sanjhi is a form of Goddess which according to some literature is worshipped by unmarried girls. As far as I remember, my grandmother used to do this because she wished for something and said if her wish is fulfilled she would put Sanjhi on the walls of her house every year till she is alive. This is how we got to learn about and celebrate Sanjhi with her. All the neighborhood kids use to join for the Pooja, sing songs and wait eagerly for the Prasad that followed. Some people also say that it is to attract wealth and prosperity that you put Sanjhi on the walls of your house. Now what is interesting about this 9 day long ritual is that you create the Goddess out of clay and cow dung yourself. There are some basic things that you make like her face, moon, sun, stars, birds, animals and her body, but then you are free to decorate it any which way. You use match sticks with molded clay to make the sun rays. You can paint these pieces any which way and paint the Goddess in the colors of your choice, with base color being the color of the clay. Cow dung is used as an adhesive to paste all the clay pieces together so that the image of Goddess is created on the wall. Sometimes a cloth is put on top of the Goddess, but it is optional. After this every evening, there is Pooja, followed by distribution of Prasad. Ninth day the Goddess is taken off the wall and taken to nearby water body, usually the village pond and immersed in it, and begins the wait for the Goddess to return the next year. This was my most treasured discovery in this museum, which connected me with a part of my past that I had almost forgotten and would have never recalled it if I had not seen a very familiar Sanjhi on the wall.

On the first and second floor is the main museum, where there are various displays like paintings, fabrics, embroidery forms, jewellery, garments, dresses, utensils, dance costumes, head gears, cow bells, musical instruments and perfume boxes from almost all north Indian states. There are items that used at specific occasions like the one in Kullu Dussehra. There is an attempt to describe the fairs and festivals of the region through the typical rituals and associated things like music and dance. The range of items captures the nuances of the region and goes beyond what is obviously known about this region. There are a lot of items that you would typically see at the village fairs. There are artifacts of everyday use which are no longer a part of our daily lives like the ones used to make lassi.

Love stories and folklore are the main theme of this museum. Now there are some famous love stories that we know of like Laila Majnu, Heer Ranjha, Sohni Mahiwal, Shiri Farhad, Sassi Punnu and Rustam Sohrab, most of which are based in erstwhile Punjab. But have you heard of stories of Usha and Anirudha of Himachal, Habba Khatun of Kashmir, Roopmati Baaz bahadur of MP, Momal and Bhupinder of Rajasthan, or the stories from Haryana like Nihal de-Nar sultan, Heeramal-Jamaal and Chap Singh-Somvati. Then there are stories from literature like Nal Damyanti and Shakuntala Dushyant which have been depicted via miniature paintings bringing alive the erstwhile literature and evoking curiosity to read them. Beyond love stories, there were also other folk stories of the region about the fakirs and saints and famous people, parables like Akeh Nandan which take you back into the past where messages passed through generations through these oral stories. What I found extremely interesting is that all the stories are handwritten in the museum, calligraphically. On the face of it, it may look like a random observation, but a handwritten word is far more personal and real than a printed page. It almost feels as if the writer is personally telling you the story.

To wrap up your visit, there is a souvenir shop in the museum, where you can buy items crafted by various craftsmen. I wish there were more items to pick and choose from, specially the one with absolute local flavor. There is an entry fee of Rs 50/- which I think is steep compared to most museums in the country where it hardly exceeds Rs 10/-, but then this is a private museum and funds need to flow in for running and maintenance. Do pickup the booklet on love legends of Haryana published by the museum which has folk stories from Haryana along with beautiful illustrations.

For those living in Gurgaon and around, this is a good place to spend a lazy day not too far from the city.

Weekend Gateway : Sultanpur Bird Sactuary

Since my childhood I have always heard that in Haryana in the name of culture there is only Agriculture. From whatever I have seen around the state, the adage does not seem to be untrue. Besides being the place of historical / mythological battlefield of Mahabharata, the state does not have much to offer in terms of travel and tourism. Add to it the rude language and the hostile people who are definitely not known for their hospitality. Incidentally, this is the state where I have lived the longest, though always at the periphery, sometime in suburbs of Chandigarh and sometimes of Delhi.

Looking for the gateways to spent weekends in an interesting way, I came across Sultanpur Bird Santuary which is actually a stone’s throw away distance from Gurgaon, but not many people seemed keen to visit it. I waited for December to come, which I read was the best time to visit the sanctuary as this is the time when most migratory birds come here. So this weekend, we headed towards Sultanpur, 17 kms from Gurgaon, on Gurgaon Farukhnagar Raod. I got 2-3 different driving directions and I chose one randomly, only to discover that it was a nightmare to cross Gurgaon from this route and on my return figured out that the other routes were equally bad. The failure of any signboards indicating anything like a national park, made us miss the crucial turn and we realized we are too far from Gurgaon, so have probably left the sanctuary behind somewhere. We traced our way back by an adventurous drive through various villages, kuchha roads and lots of mustard fields. Somewhere on the way we saw a small garden with a huge statue of Maharana Pratap. On close examination this was a place donated by Sisodia brothers to erect the statue and it was inaugurated by a descendent of the Maharana. What is funny is that all around the monument are engraved the names of the hundreds of people who donated anything for this monument. There are a few rooms at the back of the garden and the board there says that it is a Vridhh Ashram (an old age home), but on enquiring from the women who were using the garden to get some Vitamin D, I was told that there is a Baba who comes there once a week and operates from these rooms. He treats people through tantra and obviously he is the only person to use the premises. Do I not keep telling you that at times your lost ways too take you somewhere and leave you with some insights about the place?

Finally after two hours on road, we did reach the National park. It is a marshland, around a Lake, which allows the birds to come here and live in natural surroundings. The whole park has an area of about 360 acres which makes it a large park. There is an island kind of formation in the park and this where most of the birds come and stay, and it is also separated by distance from the circumference of the park. There is a paved path that would take you around the lake and in between there are jetty like pavements that would take you closer to the water and give you a better view of the birds on the central island, which does not seem accessible by foot. There are 2 machhans that we could see, where you can climb and be at a height of few feet to have bird’s eye view of the birds. We climbed on one, which was quite high. It was basic but with all safety features built in. The view from the top as one would expect was good, though beyond the periphery of national park you could feel the flat plain land, some fields and some high rise buildings coming up. My fear is that Gurgaon may expand in that direction and eventually lead to the non-migration of birds. At places you can see thousand of birds sitting in rows with perfect discipline, almost giving an impression of a school classroom.

There is an education and interpretation center which probably has a library and an audio video center with features on birds and their species. But being a weekend it was closed and we could not look at it. I am not too conversant with the variety of birds but this is what the text on the website says:

Approx 250 species of Birds are found at Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary. Some of them are resident, while others come from distant regions like Siberia, Europe and Afghanistan.

Name of some of the resident birds: Common Hoopoe, Paddyfield Pipit, Purple Sunbird, Little Cormorant, Eurasian Thick-knee, Gray Francolin, Black Francolin, Indian Roller, White-throated Kingfisher, Spot billed Duck, Painted Stork, White Ibis, Black headed Ibis, Little Egret, Great Egret, Cattle Egret, India Crested Lark, Red vented Bulbul, Rose ringed Parakeet, Red wattled Lapwing, Shikra, Eurasian collared Dove, Red collared Dove, Laughing Dove, Spotted Owlet, Rock Pigeon, Magpie Robin, Greater Coucal, Weaver Bird, Bank Mynah, Common Mynah and Green Bee Eater.

Every year more than 100 migratory bird species arrive at Sultanpur in search of feeding grounds and to pass the winter. In winter Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary provides a picturesque panorama of migratory birds such as Siberian Cranes, Greater Flamingo, Ruff, Black winged Stilt, Common Teal, Common Greenshank, Northern Pintail, Yellow Wagtail, White Wagtail, Northern Shoveler, Rosy Pelican, Gadwall, Wood Sandpiper, Spotted Sandpiper, Eurasian Wigeon, Black tailed Godwit, Spotted Redshank, Starling, Bluethroat and Long billed Pipit. Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary has birds in summer too, About 11 species of migratory birds such as Asian Koel, Black crowned Night Heron, Eurasian Golden Oriole, Comb duck, Blue cheeked Bee Eater, Blue-tailed Bee-Eater and Cuckoos come here.

It takes 1.5 hrs to take a full round of Sulanpur Bird Sanctuary on foot. Tourist can have a glance of Neelgai (Blue Bull) and Black Buck too.



There is a hotel / resort Rosy Pelican on the side of the national park, where you can stay if you want to catch the birds early morning. There is a restaurant operated by Haryana tourism. Since you are not allowed to carry your own food, and there is nothing else in the vicinity, you would be forced to eat there, but if possible this may be avoided. The food is bad, the toilets were pathetic, service poor and the basic hygiene missing. If someone from Haryana tourism is reading this, please do something about it.

I would recommend a visit to the Sanctuary but am not sure if you should do it this year as all the roads leading to and from this place are under construction, making it a nightmarish experience to go there. But if happen to be a bird watcher, it is a must visit for you, and do carry a powerful camera with you.