Thread by @gauravsabnis

In other museums in the US like the NY Met, Indian or South Asian sections are great, but more like a designated section still. @philamuseum's seems very painstakingly curated over decades. Cos it was. By Padma Bhushan Stella Karmrisch. People, look up her fascinating life.

https://twitter.com/bethlovesbolly/status/1458227364320759811

This wing is not just the usual haathi-ghoda-paalkhi type exhibits you see elsewhere but really meaningful rare and fascinating stuff. Like there's a centuries old romance novel, full of intrigue. And a replica you can read. I spent almost an hour reading it, between browsers. 😌

Ah, I found a tweet about it. Most time I've spent on an exhibit. Read a few pages, then politely step aside if someone walks up, wait till they're gone, read some more pages, etc. Very dorky it was. 🙈🙈

https://twitter.com/gauravsabnis/status/1008062628688777221?t=tjJ21VeZ7X9vuXTDOu9sGw&s=19

(No, I can't read Persian. They had an English translation with every page in the replica)

Oh, another thing is that you can view the Indian wing at Philly Museum of Art without any guilt or resentment about their provenance, like in British museums or even NY museums. Everything here comes through gift exchange programs and purchases approved by independent India.

Stella Karmrisch got a PhD in Indian history, and as a newly minted PhD, gave a lecture in London that so impressed Tagore that he offered her a position at Shantiniketan. She later taught at University of Calcutta for a few decades. And built this wing of the museum after that.

I'm sure @maaynaque can tell us way more stuff about her.

Here's my full thread from the visit. A museum more famous for the steps leading up to it (Rocky) than what's inside. But do step inside and give it a full day.

https://twitter.com/gauravsabnis/status/1008015838660710400?t=f2806MlLp-cTs71JY0tBwA&s=19

If you're an Indian in the northeast and want to expose your kids to Indian culture and all that, you'd get better results taking them to the Philly Museum Indian wing than random sanghi organizations.

By far the coolest thing about Stella Kramrisch though is that she once had a pet hyena in India. A rescue, apparently. A rescue pet hyena! Why isn't anyone making a movie about her life?

P.S. In many tweets in this thread, autocorrect changed her last name to Karmrisch. And I didn't notice. It is Kramrisch. Stella Kramrisch.