Lokayan: a museum bringing traditional life alive

Got fed up finding no new place in your domain or failing to decide where to go during your vacation? When you are engrossed in thinking about your next travel destination, Lokayan museum in Thakurgaon Sadar upazila should come up as a good option.

Typically, the term "museum" refers to places where historical artefacts are preserved, which give ideas about lifestyles and memorabilia of rulers and other renowned personalities  of a certain period, but not about the general masses. However, going a bit beyond the conventional definition of a museum, Lokayan tells its visitors of stories about lifestyles and livelihoods of people of all strata living for hundreds of years in the northern part of the country, which has a huge wealth of folk traditions.

Established in 2006 by Eco-Social Development Organisation (Esdo), the museum has already accumulated 3,000 traditional tools and materials of different types used by rural people, for instance, farmer's hat, fishing and hunting equipment, plough, rural attire, palanquin and etc.

It receives a good response from people across the country. Every day around 100-150 visitors throng it, and the number mounts during holidays and vacations, according to the museum authorities.

During a recent visit to the museum, this correspondent saw parents mainly from urban areas taking their children to it with a view to introducing their kids to the items rarely seen in cities.

While visiting around the museum with her daughter, Badrun Nahar Liza, who was from Dhaka Cantonment area, said, "The objects representing the grassroots help us know about our roots."

Anjumanara Parvin, another visitor from Kalibari in Thakurgaon, echoed Liza. "Lokayan reminds us of the struggles our predecessors went through over the years."

Dr Md Shahid-uz-Zaman, chairman of the museum, said Lokayan built with the aim of promoting the country's heritage focuses on lifestyles of the grassroots who are neglected in the conventional museums.

Initially, Esdo launched the museum in a room on a small scale in its agricultural farm at the upazila and used to showcase the items spontaneously donated by its employees and locals. Later the authorities collected more items on information from different sources.

As of now a shed for the museum, two thatch-roof houses, an open stage and a hexagonal tin-roof house have been constructed. Added to them is an abode of a feudal lord that demonstrates feudal customs of our ancestors.

On February 1 this year, Nadi Gallery (river gallery) was built in the museum to preserve water from all the rivers of the country and let everyone know of the details of those rivers.

Apart from showcasing the water in bottles, the gallery also displays photographs, documentaries, music and literary works relating to the rivers so as to raise public awareness of river conservation.

"The lives and livelihood of the people are adversely affected by the loss of the rivers. We need to ensure their right to water and simultaneously acknowledge rights of the rivers. And such gallery will help create awareness of river conservation among the people," Zaman hopes. 

Given that the ethnic minority people are losing their heritage coming in contact with modern lifestyles, the authorities added another gallery -- Ethnic Gallery -- the following month, which represents particularly the life and cultures of the ethnic communities.

This is, too, anticipated to be helping the visitors know about these communities, thus promoting inter-communal harmony in the country, they said.

Meanwhile, the construction work of another gallery "Muktijuddho Gallery" is now going on and it will likely be opened for visitors on 26 March next year, informed Zaman, adding that Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) donated Tk 10 lakh to the gallery.

"In addition to running the museum, we organise different cultural programmes including Barsha Mangal Utshab, Pitha Utshab and Choitra Sangkranti, to promote cultural heritage among our future generations," he further said.

It is not just that Lokayan serves as a repository of bucolic cultures; it will, they say, also be creating employment opportunities for a good number of poor, marginal people, particularly women and ethnic communities in days to come.

On its compound, there are over 1,000 timber, fruit and ornamental trees and medicinal plants, each bearing a name tag so that visitors can easily recognise them. A set of playground equipment such as cradle, slider and climber, has also been put up there for kids.