Mixed Instructions: A Case of the Mattancherry Palace Frescoes in Kerala

Why, ASI? 

That's the question I ask myself each time I visit any poor site unfortunately in the clutches of the so-called "efficient control" of the Archaeological Survey. 

However, things get even more muddled up in the rare case of good conservation that ASI has at long last managed despite themselves.

To photograph or not to photograph, that is the question one has in every ASI museum and usually the answer is not to photograph because to hell with whoever you are! When it's an ASI museum, even if the artefacts are languishing in neglect and you're the one researcher who can do so much for it only if you're allowed to keep a visual record photographically, they will still turn you down! The things, however, are not so simple at Mattancherry Palace in Kochi.

Now, if you ask at the desk, they'll tell you it's okay to photograph as long as it's without flash because it's got frescoes and quite understandably you don't want to cause any damage, do you? But take just a couple of steps inside the first room and you'll have a guard screaming at you in heavily accented Rajesh Koothrapally like English, not unlike that much dreaded nun from your Catholic school days, "No, maydumm! Don't make photography, please!"

Now, what's a hapless tourist to do, one may ask? Sneakily take a few pictures ? Or avoid all conflict, bow one's head and go on with the circle of life? 

And if that hapless tourist happens to be an archaeologist, who is genuinely interested in finding out more about these frescoe-covered-palace walls, which not very long ago, were fighting for the UNESCO World Heritage status? Presumably head to the reception again and try to find if they are at least selling prints of these frescoes or a book about the monument, right? 

Wrong! 

In the attempt to play stream-of-consciousness, you, dear Reader, have forgotten that you're dealing with the ASI, the organisation that bemoans lack of funds but does nothing to promote archaeotourism or even engage the few interested people who deign to visit their protected monuments at sites despite entry and photography tickets! There will be no brochures for you, no books or reprints, not even a souvenir shop. If you're lucky, at best there will be a small glass cabinet with a book on Delhi and its Monuments, placed insensitively for you to buy when you're standing in and trying to make sense of Kochi and its foremost monument, which (don't you dare forget!) was fighting for the UNESCO World Heritage Status just yesterday! 

And then, boo hoo! 

No one protects the heritage!

 No one visits the heritage sites! 

No one wants to work on heritage sites! 

And there are no books  on these magnificent sites because capable researchers are not interested only!

If you stand where I stood hours ago, ASI, you'd see why that is. Because more often than once, be it in Sarnath or Kurukshetra or something as obscure as Sanghol, this very interested researcher has been thwarted by your own policy to make museums less interesting and more austere by imposing research embargoes that make no sense at all in today's world! The time has indeed come for you to take a leaf out of the European Museum's notebooks but for starters, even following what the State Museums do might serve you better than this.