“Can anyone guess what these are,” asks Ratish Nanda, CEO of Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) India, as many curious heads peer at what appears to be brass dumbbells with perforated heads. Nanda then leaps and sinks to the floor sitting cross legged to show the purpose of the twin objects. “These are knee supports or dhichaniya,” he says, ancient seating systems from the Kathiawar region of Gujarat.We are at the Humayun’s Tomb World Heritage Site Museum in Sunder Nursery, New Delhi, where the Sanskriti Museum of Indian Textiles and Everyday Art has been inaugurated today. Showcased in glass cabinets, some nearly 12 ft high, the museum displays much of the 2,000 artefacts in metal and wood and 500 textiles from OP Jain’s collection at Sanskriti Kendra, Anandgram. These are on loan from the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) that is currently working out of Hotel Janpath. Jain had gifted his collection to IGNCA nearly three years ago.In his late 90s now, art collector and patron Jain began Sanskriti in the late 1970s to champion Indian craft as a means of understanding heritage and as a path for the future. As a paper merchant from Old Delhi, Jain would travel to different parts of the country, bringing back objects that were of interest to him, sometimes it was a brass lamp or a lota or an iron lock that held his interest.Inspired by his interaction with author Mulk Raj Anand, Jain got Delhi-based Upalghosh Associates and landscape architect Mohammad Shaheer to design Sanskriti, as a space to house these objects. Sitting on Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road, it was barren land then, desert brown, with nothing but a few bottle brush trees on the undulating Aravalli contours.From accessories for rituals and mendicants, for kitchens, for women and children, lamps and incense burners to artefacts for writing, hukkahs, chillums, nutcrackers and boxes, Jain’s collection kept growing over the years. Then there were textiles, from different parts of the country, some from undivided India, like the Daccai jamdanis and the embroidery from Sindh. There were pichwais from Rajasthan, telia rumal from Andhra Pradesh, brocade from Varanasi and kani shawls from Kashmir.“Each of these objects and textiles were used by common people. These were not meant for royalty,” says Nanda, “I grew up in Sanskriti, seeing these objects that refined my interest in art and heritage. The significance of the collection in today’s times is much greater than it was when the museum was established 40 years ago. It is imperative that the collection is accessible to thousands of people.”At the Museum, the Ayyanar terracotta horses and elephants stand as sentinels, emblematic of how they stood in Sanskriti years ago. Within the gallery too, the artefacts reference life, from birth to sanyas.Story continues below this adThere is an elaborately designed walker for a child, a papier mache box that serves as an ink well and storage for pens, a peacock-shaped paan holder, all of which are displayed as they were once in Sanskriti.“What is that?” asks a curious onlooker, pointing to what perhaps looks like a conch. “It’s Vishnu,” says Achal Pandya, Head of Conservation, IGNCA, “You can see him standing holding in his four hands the shankha (conch), the chakra (discus), the gada (mace) and the padma (lotus).” Pandya has been integral to the exhibits that have travelled to Humayun’s Tomb Museum for safe keeping.“This is who we were,” says Nanda, “Design and beauty were integral to our everyday. Be it the belans (rolling pin) which had ghunghroos (bells) on them so that as the lady of the house made rotis, there was a rhythm to her action. The brass lota – that became the premise of the India Design Report by Charles and Ray Eames, which inspired the National Institute of Design – is nothing like the plastic mugs that now sit in our toilets, nor the foot scrubber shaped as a peacock or the much-talked about Isha Ambani’s mango-shaped clutch at the Met Gala, which was here, longer before it became an ‘It’ bag.”Jain’s singular influence on Sanskriti had led to the building of an institution that awarded artists for their exemplary work, made space for artists in residence and held workshops for every craft in India, from Sanjhi paper art to enamel and terracotta. In his speech, that Nanda read out at the inaugural, Jain said: “Objects survive because they are cared for, cultures survive because they are cherished and shared. Today, I know this collection is in hands that will do both.”Story continues below this adThe sprawling seven-acre campus, with its lush greenery had been a case study for many design students over the years as an example of what Indian design is capable of – be it in landscape, in architecture or in the many objects on display.Come August 1, Sanskriti Museum of Indian Textiles and Everyday Art will open to the public at Sunder Nursery, from 10 am to 6 pm. The entry ticket is priced at Rs 50 and only 50 visitors will be permitted per hour.