India, May 18 -- The Aai Museum at Vile Parle

The Aai Museum, in Vile Parle, houses 200- to 300-year-old artefacts, collected from households of Maharashtra's royals, that women used every day. It is dedicated to mothers and celebrates the domestic hum of their lives - there are articles they used to cook, raise children, and take care of their families and themselves. These include metal betel-nut crackers, farmandan (fabric letter holders), rattles, paan-daans, combs, cooking vessels, lanterns, a palanquin, etc.

When hotelier Vithal Kamat was eight years old, his neighbours, the prominent Pant Sachiv family of the Bhor princely state of Maharashtra, had several old vessels which they would enthusiastically show the child. Kamat was fa...