Gargoti : The Mineral Museum

 My visit to Gargoti

Today, I would like to share my experience when I visited India's only gem, mineral, and fossil museum, 'Gargoti', back in 2018. Initially, our visit was not planned (to be honest, I didn't know about this place at the time), but we were passed by a board about Gargoti and its offerings. As curiosity peaked, we decided to comfort our eyes by visiting. Upon arriving at our destination, we found the doors closed. As the excitement was plunging, suddenly we were greeted by the head guide of the museum. Though nobody was there, we got a golden opportunity to see everything peacefully and nicely, as we were the only four people in the museum: the guide, my father, my sister, and me. Upon entering, the guide revealed a large, shiny, grey, and beautiful statuette of Bharatmata, carved from a single rock. Behind the statue was a souvenir shop, which was not so 'pocket friendly'. Then we saw the main gallery with lots of bright, sharp, and colorful stones, gems from Brazil, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Peru, Bolivia and India (mainly from the Deccan Plateau), As told by our guide, these stones took almost 400 to 500 years to get into this form. For me, the most exciting part was the little piece of stone from the moon and the 24-carat pure gold piece, which were cased in airtight shelves to prevent any further reaction. Zeolite was also eye-catching. 

 

Mr. K.C. Pandey initiated these collections as a hobby forty years ago. We wandered around the museum for about two hours before heading to Nashik. Although the museum was very informative, nice, and easily accessible, visitor footfall is low compared to other normal museums. For me, it's the best museum I've seen so far.

 

Oops ! I forgot to tell you the meaning of its name : The name 'Gargoti' translates to 'Cold Stone', a combination of two Marathi words: gaar, meaning cold, and goti, meaning stone.

Thank You, 

Sarthak P. Khode 😊