MUSINGS: COMING INTO CONTACT WITH ROYALTY: TREASURES OF A DESERT KINGDOM AT THE ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM

The exhibition entrance. Photo courtesy of Kathleen Lew.

Over a sumptuous breakfast at the media preview for the Royal Ontario Museum’s latest exhibition, Treasures of a Desert Kingdom: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India, I went looking for a chai masala. On my way back to my plate I bumped right into someone, nearly covering their suit in hot chai masala. I apologized, they accepted, and I sat back down, eager to hear remarks from today’s guest of honour: His Highness Maharaja Gaj Singh II of Marwar-Jodhpur.

After opening remarks from ROM Director and CEO Josh Basseches and a warm message of welcome and gratitude from Dinesh Bhatia, Consul General of India in Toronto, it was time for His Highness to speak. To the stage rose an older gentleman, poised and graceful, who moved with the gravitas of someone who has spent their life performing diplomacy. His suit was, thankfully, chai-free.

With mortification I realized that I had collided with His Highness.

His Highness Maharaja Gaj Singh II of Marwar-Jodhpur. Photo courtesy of Kathleen Lew.

His Highness and his daughter Princess Baijilal Shivranjani Rayje had travelled from India to attend this event. Many of the objects on display belonged to their family and have never before travelled outside of India. Together they form a dazzling collection that truly highlights the richness of the Kingdom of Marwal-Jodhpur.

This exhibition has now been shown at various institutions in the United States, and ROM curator Dr. Deepali Dewan set out to slightly modify it, adding transitional zones which encourage visitors to consider the collection from a broader perspective. Visitors are prompted to interpret jewelry through the lens of diplomatic relations, to see Indian art through a decolonial paradigm, and to interpret both art and games as complex networks of subtle cues charged with meaning. “I think people will come in because of the royal angle,” she tells me, “but I want them to leave with a more complicated understanding of India.”

A collection of beautiful jewelry, which Dr. Dewan wants to encourage visitors to interpret as tokens of diplomacy rather than as simply aesthetic objects. Photo courtesy of Kathleen Lew.

Dr. Dewan has carefully avoided cliches in this exhibition. She is purposefully not pandering to colonial notions of Indianness, which cast India’s cultural and artistic traditions as uniform, second to the diversity of European traditions. The stylized scalloped arches which Dr. Dewan identifies to me as being among the cliches of this projected idea of India are nowhere to be found. Although His Highness’ family can trace their roots back countless generations, and although much of the art I am viewing is at least a few centuries old, there is nothing to reinforce the colonial notion that this culture is a curiosity of the past. This exhibition is vibrant and bold. As I admire artwork from the seventeenth century, I am surrounded by the dynamic present of Marwal-Jodhpur.

One of the exhibition spaces after other guests have left. Photo courtesy of Kathleen Lew.

Before I leave, I take one last look through the gallery. The crowds have dissipated. Save security, I am alone in the exhibition. The quiet stands in sharp contrast to my morning: the bustle of the TTC, my run-in with His Highness. This feels like a different world. In just a few days this space will be bustling with visitors eager to see dazzling jewels and royal tents that are three times the size of my bedroom. Selfies will be taken, and voices will weave their way to the ceiling as people take in all the beauty that will lay before them. I soak in the quietness and reflect upon Dr. Dewan’s hope that this exhibition will complicate visitors’ understanding of India. In the stillness the message is reinforced that every jewel, every brush stroke, and every thread is infused with some kind of meaning. The objects communicate in a language I don’t speak, but I am acutely aware that I am surrounded by layers of meaning that run centuries deep.

This exhibition is beautiful. Beautifully complicated. Beautifully powerful. Beautifully nuanced.

I’ll be back to see it again.