The Varendra Research Museum in Rajshahi can be described as an archaeological site in its own right. The building is low and white, set around an inviting courtyard, and it has the particular tiredness of a place that has been declared too historic to touch.
I went on a Monday afternoon to see the oldest museum in the country. Inside, the first thing you notice is the atmosphere. The place holds a great deal of history and makes sure you feel it.
The first gallery opens with exhibits 3,000 to 4,000 years old, which tells you most of what you need to know. The galleries were lit well enough, but the light never seemed to reach anything. The artefacts were left to tell their own stories, with no audio guide and no person to help them along. It felt like a place that had been left behind.
But it was not deserted. The museum is one of the city's prime tourist stops, and people do come. There were others walking through the galleries while I was there, stopping at a label, moving on. Nobody was showing them anything. The museum offers no guided tours, so visitors find their own way round and leave with whatever they managed to work out for themselves.
Back in 2010, the museum turned 100, but nobody threw it a party.
"This museum is 116 years old, and its 100th birthday was not even celebrated," said Professor Kazi Md Mostafizur Rahman, its director. "Dirty politics runs deep in this country. It takes a toll on everything, and the museum is no exception. When the Awami League was in power, there were plenty of plans and announcements, but in the end, nothing materialised. I took over at a time when there was little stability in the country, and not much more in the museum."
Funding still remains a far cry
Kumar Sarat Kumar Ray of the Dighapatia zamindar family paid for the first dig in 1910, then fought off the Indian Museum in Calcutta when it tried to claim the finds.
Partition stripped the museum of staff and grants, and in 1964, Rajshahi University took over.
"This museum was built entirely with private money, but it later came under the university's purview," Rahman said. "Then a dispute began between the education and cultural affairs ministries. Each says the other should look after it. They keep passing the responsibility back and forth."
The founders spent 1911 fighting off a government institution that wanted their collection. Their successors spend their time looking for one that will admit to wanting it.
Help from abroad does arrive, but not financial — the museum recently signed a five-year agreement with Durham University to train its staff.
"Foreign partners will give you structure, but not money. They will give you training, but not funding," Rahman said. "The money should come from our side. It doesn't."
Rajshahi University's 50-year plan includes an expansion of the museum. The building itself is more than a hundred years old and has become a heritage site in its own right, so we cannot touch it. The plan is to demolish the old, dilapidated buildings behind it and put up a modern high-rise. When that will actually happen, only the administration knows.
Kazi Md Mostafizur Rahman, Director, Varendra Research Museum
A building that cannot grow
Rahman bristles at the suggestion that much of the collection is kept out of sight.
"Not everything needs to be on display. We rotate the collection regularly, so new pieces go on show and others go into storage. Even so, there are artefacts we cannot display because we do not have the room."
The fix, on paper, is a tower.
"Rajshahi University's 50-year plan includes an expansion of the museum. The building itself is more than a hundred years old and has become a heritage site in its own right, so we cannot touch it. The plan is to demolish the old, dilapidated buildings behind it and put up a modern high-rise. When that will actually happen, only the administration knows."
Until then the museum makes do. A festival last December drew more people than Rahman expected, and he wants another this December.
The empty reading room
The library is open to students free of charge.
"We have an enormous library here, with some of the rarest books in the world, and nobody uses it. The younger generation rely on AI for their studies and don't read books. That is part of the reason there is so little research."
The museum's own journal ran to 12 volumes and has not appeared for several years. "From now on, we want to publish the journal every year, starting in March," Rahman said. "We still don't even have a dedicated website."
Rajshahi University owns a 116-year-old archaeological museum and still has no archaeology department, something that is not lost on Rahman.
"I have personally pushed for an Art and Archaeology department at Rajshahi University. As a nation we focus on science and commerce and leave our history behind. But our history is our roots and our culture."
Rahman does not put all of it on the government.
"People in this country do not care much about museums or archaeological finds. The people who contributed to our history should have been celebrated, and they never were. That is a failure on our part as a nation. People who work in museums should love the museum, love the artefacts, and love our history. We do not have enough people like that."