The Desert Museum Arna Jharna was conceived in the year 2000 and opened to the public in 2003. The museum documents not only the performative aspects but also the intricate details of the material culture that defines the everyday life of communities living in the Thar.

Read more: www.arnajharna.org

Slow Travel

Rupayan Sansthan, that runs the museum dedicates much of its research explaining the tense balance between ecology and human subsistence. Rupayan Sansthan has highlighted how urbanisation and change in cropping patterns have prevented access to grazing land for pastoralist communities. Some communities like the Kalbelias, who are the repositories of not just musical traditions but also medicinal practices have been treated with suspicion by the state and kept outside of the Hindu caste system. Rupayan Sansthan has internationalised such groups by enabling them to perform on an international stage. Due to such efforts, in 2010, the Kalbelia musical tradition was listed on the UNESCO tangible heritage list. More recently the Rupayan Sansthan has collaborated with IIT (Jodhpur) to create a water filter using the indigenous pottery-making technique, made entirely by potters living in Jodhpur.