Chennai's Sights, Part 2

On this day we had a few errands to run and relatives to visit. As I've complained about before, no place that we have to go is close to the next place that we have to go.  So we spent a good few hours going from one place to another.

Museum Theater (Theatre, if you're Indian)

After lunch, we went to the Government Museum, aka the Madras Museum (someone didn't get the name-change memo).  Established in 1851, it is the second oldest museum in India.  You can tell that its Wikipedia page was written by an Indian because it states that the museum "was shifted to the present site in 1854"  (Indians don't move, they shift).

This is another tourist attraction at which one must pay to use a camera.  And at this place, someone actually checked our receipt to verify that we paid for a camera permit.

Nataraja and shadow

The art of India, especially South India, is dominated by Hindu themes.  The Government Museum's exhibit of sculpture contained mainly Hindu icons that were many centuries old.  Apparently, some of these deities were very popular because the ancient people kept making statues of them.  That, or they didn't have much imagination.

"I also fix motorcycles."

There were a few Buddha statues in the collection. "Aha!" you exclaim, "Buddha isn't a Hindu icon."  Well, yes and no.  For reasons that are beyond me, Hindus love Buddha and have statues of him in their houses.  Maybe if they're going to believe in so many gods, what's one more - even if he isn't a god?

Other parts of the museum contained archaeological and zoological exhibits.  Unlike at the Vandalur Zoo, the zoological exhibits here were all dead.  The archaeological exhibits contained Greek and Roman coins, evidence of international trade that occurred in Tamil Nadu thousands of years ago.

Geetha and Nikhil inspect a peacock

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