Paris-bound statues
The report that Paris-bound statues were stolen from Dhaka airport was very surprising. But for me, opposition to lending Bangladesh's art and artefacts to France by Dhaka's art connoisseurs was more apprehensive and astounding.
Exchanging artefacts between museums and cultural centres for public exhibitions are normal practices in civilized societies. I have seen many famous paintings at different museums in Sweden, Denmark and Norway where the museums very often borrow collections from other museums for public shows. I visited Louvre Museum to have a look at Mona Lisa (or La Gioconda) but unfortunately she was on trips to Japan or America for public shows on all those three occasions. Fortunately, I had a sweet encounter with Mona Lisa during one of her trips to Denmark even though I did not feel so much thrilled by meeting her as I had expected. Guimet Museum in France did a favour to Bangladesh by borrowing 143 artefacts for public exhibition in their country. Those who opposed this lending lack proper understanding of things and, to say the least, have no knowledge of arts and artefacts and are motivated by some other reasons for their opposition. The story of Troy would have remained story only if someone did not excavate the Troy site (a place close to Gallipoli and very close to the town of Canakkale in Turkey). Ramses the great would have been buried for ever under sands if he was not found and exhibited to people. “Vishnu' and 'Bust of Vishnu', the statues that are from Gupta era of the seventh century are not that old and it would have got more publicity and much attention from people in Europe who admire and love such things very much. Why oppose lending it to somebody who knows how to take care of it and make it known to culture loving people? Why we are such strange people always ready to take a stance on wrong things. I donated some very valuable dolls to Dhaka National Museum in Oct 2001 and I know what problem the director of that museum had in receiving these dolls because those were dolls. The Director had to rename the dolls as “Symbols of World Civilization”. What a strange people we are and we dare to talk so loudly about art and culture!
Now, two 1,500-year-old terracotta Vishnu statues bound for an exhibition at Guimet Museum were stolen while in the custody of Air France at Zia International Airport (ZIA). How that could happen is a million dollar question. Those so called art connoisseurs may kindly ponder for a while and explain to us why it was never stolen from the museum having less security arrangements than the Dhaka airport.
Is it difficult to find out the culprits?
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