A friend and I visited the National museum in Delhi/. We wanted to see the exhibition titled The Body in Indian Art. It is Curated by Dr. Naman P Ahuja. Most of the exhibition was sculpture.

The good news is that I was able to feel many of the sculptures in particular the erotic ones of women in different poses.

The fun began in the glass cases. There was no question of having them opened. Out came my iPhone and I launched voice vision. I was able to see many artifacts. We also visited the Harappan Civilisation collection. There were some things like stone pots outside but most of the stuff was behind glass. This stuff is over 5000 years old. I was able to perceive stone tools, figurines, jagged pottery. I could even tell the differences in the various styles of pottery. One of the most interesting experiences I had was at a case of ancient jewelry. I was able to see the bangles as hollow circles. In terms of learning, I wonder if we could use sculpture to show things like perspective? Another thing I found is that it is much easier to understand older art. The drawings are more distinct. Modern art specially the human form appears to be more abstract so segregating shapes is harder.

I did have problems. There is a famous figurine of a dancing girl from MOHENJO-DARO. It is really small 10.8 CM in height. No go in seeing all the details with voice vision.

In addition, I tried reading a copy of Hammurabi’s code which was inscribed on a stone pillar. No go. I was unable to distinguish individual characters. I wonder how the pillar was meant to be used? Did you walk around it to read the various laws? What if you were short?

Some of the sculptures were very large and that is when I missed my trusty fish eye lens and video glasses. The vOICe’s original implementation stands alone. I did not get as much texture detail with voice vision as I would have got with the original implementation.

There were plenty of paintings and colored drawings on paper and cloth. I tried eye-music on them. All that happened was that all the 4 instruments played. I wish it could better convey the shades of color. For once, lighting was not a problem because the displays were well lit.

To conclude, do the following to have the best museum experience.

• Carry a fish-eye lens.
• Use the mobile phone version because it is easier to bring the phone to the correct height of the case and focus the camera.
• Focus on the sculpture because at this time, you will have to do a lot of work to see any paintings.
• You have to pay extra for taking photographs. I did not pay which is why this post only has text.
• Be careful about segregating the mounting block from the actual sculpture.
• Many of the sculptures did not have feet so this is not the best place to learn anatomy.