High Culture in Hyderabad

I spent the day engaging in the time-honored tourist activity of museum going. Nearly everyone I work with has told me that I must go to the Salar Jung Museum. So, in the interest of shutting everybody up, I drove more than an hour across Hyderabad, in the typically insane traffic, to check it out. I had especially heard a lot about the "Veiled Rebecca" by Giovanni Maria Benzoni (1809-1873) and I have to give it up; it was truly remarkable. The figure appears to be entirely covered by a diaphanous, delicately tassled veil. It's really a marvel of patience, as much as anything else--but, that's just the perspective of someone who's attention span can be measured in nanoseconds. [OMG!! Jaws is on Hyderabad teevee and they just finished the whole "shark in the water" exchange. Fantastic!--Sorry, there goes that attention span again]

Okay, so aside from the "Veiled Rebecca," which was pretty cool, the Salar Jung was not really what I expected. It honestly never occurred to me that there could be a Western standard for museums, but I guess there is, because I couldn't help but notice that the Salar Jung was dark and dusty. Most of the exhibit spaces were lit with florescent lights. It was raining outside, and the ceiling leaked at various points throughout the building. All of the artwork in the Modern Indian Painting exhibit was mounted in the college dorm style. I could definitely go on, but I was actually okay with most of that (it's not like I'm some fancypants arts-appreciater) until I got to the Western Painting exhibit which was brightly lit, freshly painted and velvet rope bedecked. It seemed like the Indo-Asian art was really getting short shrift . . . Dear God, as I'm writing this an ad for a product called "Fair and Handsome," a skin bleaching cream just came on. I swear I am not making this up. Right . . . so, what was I saying about Western art seemingly be valued over indigenous work? [sigh]