Ever heard of a Packaging Museum? Bengaluru has this one-of-its kind museum that not many may have heard of. Manjushree Museum of Packaging and Design, located inside the Manjushree Technopack in Electronic City, is home to 2000 objects collected from across the world, which show the evolution of packaging in the last 100 years.
Old gramophone records packed in a single colour, two-colour and multi-colour printed paper board, face powder boxes in ceramic, glass, hot cases with space for hot coal, tin boxes of candies, biscuits and baby food, wooden containers to store flour and rice... the objects displayed are guaranteed to take you on a nostalgic trip. Remember Binaca, Agfa cameras, tin boxes of Lactogen, Amulspray?
“This old metal gun case, used to keep Tipu Sultan’s rifles, has just been acquired. Now, it is the oldest item in the collection. We bought it from an antique shop in Bengaluru,” says Surendra Kedia, Exective Director of Manjushree Technopack Ltd. He is the younger brother of Vimal Kedia, CEO of Manjushree Manjushree Technopack Ltd, who established the museum in 2003.
“The idea is to show how packaging has evolved over the years. To begin with, there was no plastic or paper, but only wood and glass. Plastic came after the ’60s. And our earlier generations never threw things, they recycled and that is how we got a lot of objects for the museum from our parents and grandparents. Our eyes and ears are always open and whenever we come across something relevant, we buy it. We get a lot of stuff from Rajasthan,” explains Surendra.
The museum is full of rare items like the Cyprus clay powder box from the ’40s, vanity kits which were introduced in India in 1965 by Air India for their air hostesses, old liquor glass bottles in different shapes, wooden cigarette and cigar cases to name a few.
Studying these exhibits, culled from across the world like a made-in-England duplicator (what is called a photocopy machine) in an iron casing, wooden cutlery boxes with velvet lining, old style hair dryers packed in cartons, radios in wooden casing, cold drink cans, can be useful to FMCG packaging experts today and it does attract a whole lot of them. “They can see the evolution of cans, a fine example of a leak-proof airtight container with lining and plastic gasket in ball jars by the famous American company Ball,” says Surendra. Visitors can also observe the evolution of hot cases as well.
From the ’20s hot case with space for hot coal, the double walled lunch boxes to one of the earliest version of modern hot case by Eagle, can give one a lot of fodder for thought. But what about a lay person for whom the museum already seems out of bounds?
“Right now it is kind of private but people can visit with appointment. We are planning to shift to a bigger space in Bidadi and that is where we would want to make it public. We plan to start a recycling plant and call it Re-useum,” clarifies Surendra.
(For details visit manjushreeindia.com)
