Dedicated to the postal history of India, the Sandesha Museum of Communication in Bengaluru displays artefacts and exhibits showcasing the evolution of the Indian communication system.
From the British-era General Post Office that once stood in place of the modern one to the ancient Anche system of the Wodeyar rulers, Bengaluru has a long history intertwined with the postal service. For history enthusiasts and stamp collectors, the Sandesha Museum of Communication on Museum Road is well worth a visit.
To start with, the very name of the road is intertwined with the building that now houses the Sandesha Museum. While Sandesha itself is barely five years old, its high-roofed colonial bungalow is from the mid-1800s and is associated with the Government Museum — one of the oldest museums in India.
Located on Kasturba Gandhi Road, the Government Museum is housed in a heritage building dating back to 1865, and before this building was completed, the museum’s displays were housed in two buildings on Museum Road at different points in time — one of which is now the Sandesha Museum.
Preserved at the Sandesha Museum are relics from across the history of the postal service. The entry hall features a stack of letters pierced on a metal pole, as they were often arranged in days past. Interestingly, these were sourced from the house of Siddanagowda Patil, a leading figure in starting Asia’s first cooperative society in the Gadag district. On its shelves are unclaimed goods from throughout the decades — from small brass sculptures to beads and even entire logs of sandalwood. Charts with stamps attached also list the types of stamps and their histories, such as joint issue and omnibus issue stamps.
Timekeeping has also always been an important part of the postal service, and as such India Post has preserved a rare Ansonia wall clock, manufactured in New York. Another simpler clock is more sombre — it stopped at 11.18 pm when floods inundated the post office at Lolsur near Gokak where it hung at the time. Older equipment no longer in use is also on display — very recent equipment such as a Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) dish that was once used to transmit money order data, old mallets and wooden machines employed to arrange records and punch holes in bundles of paper, along with old uniforms and leather satchels once worn by postmen.
The museum also has an audiovisual room to host visiting schoolchildren that examines the history of the postal service in pre-colonial times.
The museum is open on all days except Sundays and public holidays, with tickets available at Rs 25.
source/content: indianexpress.com (headline edited)