A day in ROM

Main entrance – The Crystal building

Last time when I was in Toronto, I visited the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) twice. But still, there was so much to see and discover. This time I arrived early in the morning and tried to cover the whole museum in a day. A lot has changed in the past three years. New collections have been added and the old ones have been rearranged. Despite all the effort, when closing time was announced in the evening, nearly half a floor was still there to be explored and my knee joint pain was off the charts.

A huge skeleton of Futalognkosaurus now adorns the main lobby. This tongue-twisting name actually means “giant chief lizard”. Despite their imposing structures, these were plant-eating Sauropods dinosaurs. I don’t need to tell you that nowadays even pre-school children know all about Sauropods. These are at number three in favorite dino list by my little nephew Shaheer after T-Rex and Triceratops.

 Chinese, Korean and Japanese civilization sections are at ground level.

Mithras was a god of light, truth and promised word in Persian Zoroastrianism.

To me, visiting a museum is relevant and quite a humbling experience on two accounts. One, its natural history sections tell us that human life and civilization covers just a tiny bit when measured against the immensity of time on this planet. Secondly, relics from different civilization are a testament to the fact that ours is just one of the many possible ways of being. Names of once-powerful gods and god-like rules are now just restricted to few references in books and displays.

Islamic and Middle Eastern sections are at level 3. This is a kind of sight that made our Allama Iqbal quite depressed actually when he was visiting Europe. Nevertheless, I would like to differ with him at this point. I think that these artifacts are much better preserved and cared for here than in the native countries.

A section on the same level is devoted to Gandhara Civilization. According to museum plaque, most of the works were purchased in the 1930s by the first director of the museum, from a single dealer in Peshawar named Ram Das.

Flight - Nature section

This T-Rex doesn't seem too happy about this photo op with the author.

It is said that Rome was not built in a day. On the same note, this ROM also needs more than a day, may be a full month to be explored in totality. I plan to buy its annual membership on the next visit.