Making light work of a hobby

Professor Shyam Joshi has collected more than 325 lamps from various places

The serenity on his face spoke more than words could. A huge sense of contentment was writ large on his face. A passion that was triggered some 40 years ago was put on public display for three days.

Manohar alias Shyam Joshi, a retired head of department (English) from Wadia College, has a strange and delightful hobby of collecting lamps.

"The illuminations from these antiquities are gifts from the past. They hold and preserve the tradition of India, which may be ancient, medieval or modern," says Joshi.

Till now, he has collected 325 lamps, the oldest one being 1,200 years old.

"A few experts say it may be almost 1,500 years old but I take the safer side. The era of such relics can not be judged accurately because of human limitations, so it is entirely a guess work based on studies and experiences," he says.

A dedicated lamp scavenger, Joshi says that he often used to schedule his lecture trips or any official trip depending on the bazaar in that place. "Every city or village organise some kind of joone bazaar like we have in the city. It simply became a habit to enquire about it and then I used to go and pick the lamps."

The retired professor switches from Hindi to Marathi and then to English with relative ease. "I was fortunate to get good teachers and more to my luck I had the opportunity to train in Rashtriya Kanth Sangeet under the great Khan Sahab Gulam Khwaja," says the 71-year-old man whose fitness belies his age.

Other than Kanth Sangeet, Joshi is a member of the experimental theatre group for the last five decades. "Theatre is a dream of reality," he says, "It is not reality and you don't have to be real in theatre, but have to make others believe that it's reality."

A huge fan of Big B, he couldn't hide his excitement of meeting him, "Amitabh (Bachchan) is someone God has taken time to build. His charm and magnetism is amazing."

About his experience, Joshi says that in his time things were easily available. "We used to get the basic necessities easily but for the present generation, competition is horrible and they are struggling merely for survival."