Chaitali Shome, OP
BHUBANESWAR: Life is a phase of non-stop collection for 80-year-old Akshay Kumar Patnaik, the owner of Odisha’s first engineering museum at Bolagarh. Patnaik was a diploma engineer in mechanical department of the state government in 1960. He had also worked at Rourkela Steel Plant but left his job in 1963.
Soon after, he went to Madras to get AMIE (Associated Member of India Engineering) in 1964. In the mid-sixties, he tried his hand at doing business in Bhubaneswar, but failed and came back to Bolagarh to become uncontested sarpanch of Bolagarh Gram Panchayat. Self-sufficient and a good farmer, he then started collecting old radios, cameras, gramophones, currency notes, books, table clocks, wrist watches, Xerox machines, petromax lights, water pumps, wooden ploughs, refrigerators that run on kerosene, manuscripts and everything that is antique he could lay his hands on.
Interacting with OrissaPOST, Patnaik said, “From my very childhood I used to see my parents take great care of old things and keep them intact. Probably, that value was instilled in me and I started the state’s first engineering museum in the year 1970 at Bolagarh in the name of Ghanashyam Patnaik-Pindika Srichandan Museum and Library.”
Interestingly, the museum has 26 sections where audio-video is the main section containing 550 radios. The oldest one is an imported century-old radio. Visitors can find all brands of radio here — from Philips, Bush, Murphy, Telered (Germany), Sony, National Panasonic to Toshiba, Aiwa, Naiwa, Santosh, Deltron and many more.
The museum also has a large collection of gramophones, radiograms, record changers, record players, harmoniums from Germany, France and Japan, as well as varieties of old TV sets.
What will amuse the visitor is a 150-year-old typewriter in the Typewriter Section where at least 15 types of machines are on display. Old Xerox machines, antique amplifiers, petromax lights of a bygone era, Vaya lights, old Japanese lanterns, and US lanterns are some other antiquities that find a place of pride at the exhibition.
Tarani Sen Patnaik, a freelance photographer and writer said, “One will be amazed to find at least one hundred types of cameras being displayed there. I am stunned at the huge collection and one can learn a lot about the cameras from the USA, Germany, Japan, Russia, India, Hong Kong and France. Two motion cameras made in France are also displayed here.”
Various film projectors made in France, 100-year-old table clocks, wrist watches, various types and shapes of brass ornaments and locks can also be seen at the museum.
A total of 100 telephones, some as old as 100 years; different kinds of ink pots, again century-old; hundreds of glass bottles; 12 types of spinning wheel (charkha); musical instruments like tanpura; slide projectors from different countries; first Xerox machine of India; gramophone records; an American generator; old digital water pump and the list is endless. A library with 5000 books and manuscripts is a part of the museum.
However, Patnaik says, “The state government has given me no help in spite of writing to them for assistance to establish my museum. Today I have invested personally 5 crores and my museum is running in a rented house. My two sons are helping me to preserve this and as I am a good farmer I sell my crops and invest in my museum”.
Managing trustee Odisha Sangrahaka Mahasangha (OSM) Shasknka Sekhar Dash said, “It’s an incredible paradise for collectors, researchers and students who want to have a clear knowledge of our past technology and engineering gears. We all must help him to make it a great museum”.