New Delhi: “Wow, so this is Qutub Minar!” For a visitor with visual impairment, recognising one of Delhi’s most familiar monuments did not require seeing it. Running their hands over its form, feeling its tapering structure and architectural details was enough to turn something encountered in textbooks into something they could visualise.That experience lies at the heart of ‘Heritage at My Fingertips’, an inclusive heritage gallery developed by Saksham in collaboration with the ministry of culture and national museum. It is changing how visitors in general and those with visual impairment and low vision encounter India’s history — through touch, sound and imagination.For Class VII student Kartik, the visit opened up parts of the country he had known largely through lessons. “I understood what certain parts of Nagaland and Mizoram would look like. I could visualise them. I loved what I learnt about Manipur,” he said.Elsewhere, students crowded around representations of animals, running their fingers over the feathers of a peacock and the fur of a deer. Imran was particularly taken by an African elephant and by a monument he already knew well. “I could visualise Hawa Mahal. I had studied about it and even visited the monument in Jaipur, but today I understood why it is called Hawa Mahal,” he said.For Akhtar, the visit cleared up a rather different childhood impression. “I thought Hawa Mahal was always in ‘hawa’. Today I came to know what it is,” he said, while Mohan found himself most fascinated by the Golden Temple.The gallery brings together 41 tactile 3D and 2D replicas of monuments and heritage structures. Braille labels, large-print information, tactile floor maps and audio descriptions accompany the exhibits, allowing visitors to feel architectural forms and details that museums have conventionally presented primarily as visual experiences.For Avichal Bhatnagar, a visually impaired professor at Guru Nanak Dev Khalsa College, Delhi University, this changes the nature of a museum visit. “The 3D models along with Braille descriptions are fascinating. It is a unique experience. Sometimes, what you can feel by touch is not something you can experience by sight,” he said.The idea has been years in the making. Rummi K Seth, managing founder trustee of Saksham, said its roots went back 14-15 years, when conversations with an architect at School of Planning and Architecture led students to experiment with tactile replicas. The gallery itself took about two years to plan. “You have to get an architect and decide what you want to do. It has to be perfect. You can’t just do it at random,” she said.The children’s response, Seth said, has been its biggest validation. “Some told their principals, ‘Please take us again.’ Being able to touch and know what exactly something is makes things much clearer in their minds. It’s education through touch.”Curator Rige Shiba said National Museum deliberately wanted to go beyond a handful of famous monuments. The selection, therefore, represents all 28 states and eight Union Territories and includes lesser-known heritage, particularly from the Northeast. Among the experiences is a recreated Sohrai art wall from Jharkhand, while audio descriptions are designed to complement what visitors feel with their hands. “We didn’t want it to be only the popular places,” Shiba said. “The idea was to give them a glimpse of the entire country.”The museum hopes this accessibility will eventually extend beyond one gallery. A tactile station with replicas and audio descriptions is now being developed for the Harappan gallery, with similar interventions envisaged elsewhere. “This exhibition caters to people with visual impairment, but we don’t want segregation,” Shiba said. “Anybody can come and experience it.”
