The Time-Keeper's Tale: Inside Tapas Kumar Basu's Museum Of The Magical Ordinary

In a narrow back alley in North Kolkata, where time seems to stand still, Tapas Kumar Basu's apartment appears to be a portal to the past. For almost six decades, the septuagenarian retired civil servant has been collecting cameras, lanterns, phones, and a myriad other artifacts from India's storied past.

A Life in Objects

Basu's varied collection of cameras, telephones, watches, clocks, fountain pens, lighters, gramophones, early video equipment, film booklets, lamps, lanterns, and utensils is carefully arranged to reveal a narrative sequence. By lining them up, one can trace the mechanical evolution of the 20th century, from plate cameras and Rolleiflex TLRs to the boxy Brownies and bulb-flash cameras, as well as portable movie cameras that captured family histories.

In 2012, while directing 'Jiban Smriti', a documentary about Rabindranath Tagore, Rituparno Ghosh needed the right camera for a scene featuring Tagore and his wife being photographed. He chose to use the plate camera from Basu’s collection for this scene.

The Habit of Collecting

In a 2014 profile, Basu recalled the exact moment he discovered the joy of collecting: when he found old coins in a box back home in East Midnapore. From coins, his passion for collecting paraphernalia spread to stamps, matchboxes, cameras, and lamps until collecting became his lifelong calling.

Soon, he began showcasing his objects at fairs and science exhibitions. Children gathered around cameras they had never seen before, while older visitors recognized the radios and pens their grandparents once used. Through his displays, the term “vintage” transitioned from an abstraction to a tangible memory. His tribute to a century of cinema includes booklets of film lyrics, such as those from the Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen-starrer Harano Sur, which were sold during show intervals.

Memory as Public Service

For Basu, collecting has always been about service. He brings his objects out for school exhibitions, allowing children to hold and understand how technology once worked. Community groups such as the Paschim Banga Vigyan Mancha have helped him stage shows while national institutions such as the National Council of Science Museums (NCSM) have recognised his work as an example of grassroots heritage preservation.

But Basu is also cautious of his collection. He refuses to share his address out of fear of being robbed of his valuables. “I have so many items that they can’t be accommodated in one house. They are kept in trunks and distributed to my friends from Paschim Banga Vigyan Mancha, which helps me put up most of my shows,” he told The Telegraph in 2014.

And yet, to see Tapas Kumar Basu's collection in person is to feel history as object memory. In preserving the ordinary, he has created something extraordinary: a tangible record of the ceaseless flow of time.

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