Museum of Rural Life, PAU

The Museum of Rural Life stands on the campus of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) in Ludhiana and covers about 4,000 square yards. Modelled on the open-air museum at Copenhagen, it shows antiques of village Punjab from the 18th and 19th centuries across two floors. The idea came from Dr M.S. Randhawa, then Vice Chancellor of PAU, who chose a design for the building and gathered old objects from historic small towns such as Rahon, Zira, Sunam, Goindwal and Sultanpur Lodhi.

The entrance porch copies a traditional rural house, with water channels on either side and a pathway about 100 yards long leading to a carved door. One room holds rare Harappan coins; an open kitchen beyond it has a clay chulha, a peerhi seat and a large paraat, with figures of women making rotis and carrying a gaggar. Another room has spinning wheels, grain baskets and pictures of village craftsmen by the artist Kehar Singh, and a further room recreates a whole village house, with a woman at a hand mill and a big oil urn called a kuppa on the verandah.