This home museum in Hyderabad gives vintage south-Indian home vibe

Called the YK Antiques Home Museum, the place offers a vintage south-Indian home vibe

Hyderabad: Eighty-three-year-old Yenugu Krishnamurthy walks around his home museum in Alwal, meticulously explaining when and where he collected each of his 1,000 antique pieces.

Called the YK Antiques Home Museum, the place offers a vintage south-Indian home vibe and represents Krishnamurthy’s lifelong passion for antiques.

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From brass utensils and stone cooking pots to old typewriters and rotary dial phones, the place gives a 1950s’ traditional south-Indian home vibe.

Asked how it all started, he chuckles and recalls his mother. “I was working in Chennai and had decided to move my mother there with us. She brought a few big brass utensils and with no place to accommodate them in the kitchen, I placed them in our living room as show pieces.”

Later, all their friends who visited their home became nostalgic and would talk about their grandparents and village life. “I felt good, and started collecting more,” he says. He went around the country and bought things to add to his collection, storing them with the help of his wife Venkata Ramana.

Giving off that old-school aesthetic, his home is filled with cooking utensils made of brass, tin, and copper. On one of the walls, you will find a variety of huge plates traditionally called tambalam and on the other, you will find musical instruments and weapons. He also has a collection of hookah pots, vintage chairs, and two canopy beds made hundreds of years ago.

Everything in his house, from the utensils he uses to cook his meals in the morning to the chairs he lounges on in the evening are all the things that are decades old.

Before his wife passed away a few years ago, they contemplated donating the entire collection to a museum. But taking a friend’s advice, they took a chance at running their home museum.

“We thought we’ll do it for six months and see. If it works, it works. If not we would donate it,” he said. The home museum did not only function well but also became a one-of-a-kind experience in the city.

They started having visitors around thrice a week and it ended up in the top searches for ‘Museums in Hyderabad’ on Google.

Entry to the museum is free of cost. Krishnamurthy runs it with his own savings and with the help of a few volunteers who run the website and social media handles of the museum.

“The only goal is to have people come and witness how their ancestors lived. These are not things you’ll see daily. And it’s not a typical museum. You can touch and feel things, and actually – for a second – live that bygone life,” he concludes.

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