One man's collection
Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum
राजा दिनकर केळकर संग्रहालय
Twenty thousand objects of everyday Indian life, gathered by one man over six decades. We take a themed route through it — so you leave having actually seen something, rather than everything.
Dinkar Kelkar spent sixty years collecting the ordinary: lamps, nutcrackers, door fittings, inkpots, musical instruments, textiles, kitchen vessels, writing implements. Not treasure — things people used. The result is one of the most quietly extraordinary museums in India, and it is ten minutes from Shaniwar Wada.
A museum this dense defeats most visitors. So we do it thematically. On World Museum Day 2025 we took a route through the utensil galleries alone and asked what a grandmother's ladle can tell you about a household, a region, a century. Other visits follow the lamps, or the doors, or the instruments.
We also talk about the collector himself, about the Mastani Mahal reconstructed inside, and about what it means to build a museum out of daily life rather than dynasty.
On this walk
- A themed route — lamps, utensils, doors or instruments
- Everyday objects as historical evidence
- The Mastani Mahal, reassembled inside the museum
- Dinkar Kelkar and sixty years of collecting
- Craft techniques in metal, wood and textile
From this walk
Keep walking
Other routes
Old City Heritage Walk
The walk we come back to again and again. Through Kasba, Shaniwar and Budhwar Peth — past Pune's oldest temple, the walls of Shaniwar Wada, and wada doorways that have been opening onto the same lanes for two hundred years.
Kasba Peth & Budhwar Peth
Kasba is the oldest peth in the city and Budhwar grew up beside it. Together they hold Pune's founding temple, its densest surviving wada fabric, and its most complicated present.
Sarasbaug: Heritage & Nature
Everyone in Pune has been to Sarasbaug. Almost nobody knows it was built as a lake — or that it is named after the cranes Sawai Madhavrao released onto its water.