Maritime Heritage Museum: An architect's gift to Chennai

A retired architect has fulfilled his fascination with the sea by building a unique Maritime Museum in Chennai. The museum exhibits anchors, wooden houseboats, clocks among other items.

Chennai:Hemchandra Rao, a retired architect in Chennai has converted his house into a unique Heritage Museum, dedicated to maritime items.

The museum exhibits anchors, coins with ships engraved on them, models of brass ships, wooden houseboats, pocket watches, clocks, ship lanterns, postcards, stamps of lighthouses, canals and a 16-foot-wooden boat that is a replica of one of the boats that crossed the Buckingham canal in the 1870s.

Rao has travelled to various states like Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Gujarat among others. The museum also has all lighthouse photographs.

"I saw an arch bridge here and that prompted me to know more about these things," Rao said explaining his obsession with the sea.

"As a child, I was encouraged by my father to collect postal stamps. Slowly, it grew and I found stamps showing ships only. Later, I started looking for things having ships picture on them. Finally, in 2015 I started a fascination for lighthouses in India," he added.

The museum is Chennai's first Heritage Maritime Museum.

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