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Wednesday, Sep 22, 2004

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Other States - Gujarat

A private exposition of fossils

Tarnetar, Gujarat, Sept. 21. Relics looking like a fossilised dinosaur's egg, a tree trunk dating back to prehistoric era and petrified remains of a star fish seem to be more part of a museum rather than the annual three-day Tarnetar Fair held in Surendranagar district of Gujarat.

The exhibition of fossils is one of the many surprises that a visitor will encounter at the traditional fair, held around the 14th century temple of Trinetreshwar Mahadev (three-eyed Lord Shiva), situated in this tiny hamlet, about 75 km from Rajkot city.

Housed in a make-shift tent, with a banner on top reading `Kutch Fossil Park', the 70-odd artefacts here, interestingly form a private collection of an ex-serviceman resident in Kutch.

``These fossilised remains, dating back to the prehistoric era, have all been collected from in and around the district of Kutch,'' says Mohansingh Sodha, the owner of the exhibits.

Sodha, a Surya Chakra awardee for bravery in 1971 Indo-Pak war and a former platoon commander of Home Guards unit of Bhuj, has collected innumerable fossils from Kutch and developed a private museum in Vithon village, near Bhuj.

``In the past 33 years, I have traversed about eight lakh kilometres of the district and collected more than 10,000 fossilised remains,'' he told UNI at the fair.

It all began one-day, when sitting on a sand-dune, he noticed the fossilised remains of a star fish nearby, Sodha said recollecting his first sighting of a fossil. ``I did not know anything about a fossil then, but I had an intuition that it was something valuable.''

Pointing to the jostling visitors at his stall, constituting mostly tribals from neighbouring villages, he said, ``Most of them do not understand the word `fossil', but all of them know that it is something rare and historical''.

Sodha continued collecting these fossils, till he met a friend from the state archaeology department who gave him a book. Most of the photographs in the book looked very identical to his small collection, he said while admitting that even after over 30 years of fossil hunting, he is nowhere near being an expert on the subject.

According to Sodha, Kutch is a goldmine of fossilised treasure waiting to be excavated. As per the records of the Gujarat government, Kutch and Kheda are the two districts where fossils of Dinosaur can be found, he noted.

In places in and around Anjar in Kutch district, remains of Megalosaurus, Diplodocus, Coelurus and others can be found, he claimed.

``Now I do not have enough space to keep my collection and so some of the pieces have to be kept in open space in front of my private museum,'' he said while showing a photograph of fossilised remains stacked up in open space at his hometown.

Sodha wants the government to help him with preservation and carbon-dating of the valuable artefacts. ``I have come to this fair so that people, especially the local, become aware about our priceless heritage.''

The three-day fair that coincides with the festival at Trineteshwar temple, celebrating the wedding of the `Mahabharata' hero Arjuna with Draupadi, ended yesterday.

UNI

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A private exposition of fossils