The art is in the right place

Joining a growing league of India's privately-owned museums is Sarmaya, a modern space that chronicles historic journeys

- NAMRATA ZAKARIA

What do you do when you have amassed enough wealth and a lot of art? You share it with the world. Joining a growing league of India's privately owned and -funded museums is Sarmaya, in Mumbai's bustling Fort area. The 3,600 sq.ft gallery was opened by Paul Abraham and his wife Pavitra Rajaram.

Sarmaya—which has just mounted its first exhibition, High Seas, Open Roads: Journeys that bring us home—has long been a digital space and a physical archive in Dadar. But the couple sought a physical space to share the private collection with the world. It opened quietly last November with a reading of good friend Manu S. Pillai's new book, Gods, Guns and Missionaries.

"We had earlier presented some collections at Chemould art gallery, Pundole's, and the CSMVS museum," says Abraham, the 64-year-old former COO of IndusInd Bank and current president of the Hinduja Foundation. "But we eventually wanted something front-facing." The 2018 exhibition at Pundole, 'Portrait of a Nation,' marked the debut of Sarmaya, with a collection of sepia-tinted photographs from the 19th century, which included one of the earliest photos ever to be taken in India, on the mutiny of 1857 by Felice Beato.