Museum makes a sweeping statement

Arna-Jharna in Rajasthan showcases brooms down the ages

Jaipur:01/11/ 2014: (To go with Aarti Dhar Story) Different kinds of brooms on display at Arna-Jharna --- The Desert Museum of Rajasthan situated near Jodhpur on Sunday. 02/November/2014.--Photo: Rohit Jain Paras

At a time when getting photographed with a broom is a fashion statement and association with the Clean India Campaign a status symbol, a visit to a museum for brooms is a sure-fire conversation starter.

‘Arna-Jharna: The Desert Museum of Rajasthan’ hosts the Broom Project, envisioned by the late Komal Kothari, one of India’s leading folklorists and oral historians.

Inconspicuous — if not invisible — and tucked away in corners or behind doors, a broom is not usually an object of art that one encounters at a museum.

Cultural object

But the study of brooms offers a gateway into understanding society and environment. For example, the fibres that brooms are made of give clues to the kind of grasses and plants that thrive in the region. In rural Rajasthan, village women make their own brooms from whatever is available: leaves, twigs or waste material. The Desert Museum showcases such improvised brooms among its many exhibits.

Also on display are those made by professional broom-making communities. “We have collected more than 160 from different parts of Rajasthan,” Anil Sharma, manager of the museum, told The Hindu .

Those used indoors tend to be made of tender leaves and delicate fibres, including the flowering ends of the panni grass called sirki, and the thin stems of the daab, kaas and jeniya grasses.

These are used to sweep floors made of clay, cement, stone or plaster. Such brooms are rarely used in the courtyard and never in the cow-shed.

According to information from the museum, the erstwhile nomadic Banjara community produces brooms made of different grasses ( panni ); the migratory Koli community originally from south India and the Bagariya community of Rajasthan use date-palm ( khejur ); and the Dalit community specialises in bamboo makes ( baans ).

When the ‘broom museum’, as it is locally known, was set up by Rupayan Sansthan — the organisation founded by Komal Kothari — it drew ridicule. It was only when the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) adopted the broom as its election symbol that the museum got some attention, Mr. Sharma said. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi picking up the broom himself for the Swachh Bharat campaign, it is likely that the museum will get more famous.