WHEN YOU ENTER THE NEWLY RE-OPENED DR. BHAU DAJI LAD MUMBAI CITY MUSEUM, BE prepared to stand very still as your eyes adjust to the grandeur inside. Mumbai, like New York and London, has had its own city museum for quite some time. But now, after a four-year-long restoration process, the city's oldest museum has become world-class - worthy of the city and its illustrious past.

The museum building with its elegant Palladian exterior and high Victorian interior has always been striking. In recent years, however, the building had deteriorated and much of the museum's collection had been damaged by dust, dirt, fungus, breakage and a lack of imagination in the way it was displayed. The initial restoration process, costing Rs. 4 crore, has revitalized the museum building, its extensive collection and even its manner of functioning.

Built in the grand Renaissance revival style, the elaborate stucco, stencil work and eye-catching gilding - all restored or replicated to its original splendour with the help of local artisans - embellish the ceilings and walls inside the museum. Its Minton floors, liberated from layers of dirt and grime, and cool celadon green walls invite you in to preview a collection of more than 3,500 objects that have been salvaged, cleaned and restored by expert conservators.

The Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum.

All this has been made possible due to a unique public-private partnership between a conservation group (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, INTACH), a philanthropic trust of a business house (Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation) and the local governmental body (Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai). Whether such partnerships can become the model for future museum renovations in the country is still to be seen, but for Mumbai this has meant that an unforgettable legacy showcasing the city's artistic and cultural evolution has been preserved.

For scholars and art historians as well as local families and tourists, a visit to the Bhau Daji Lad Museum provides an insight into 19th century Mumbai that time forgot - when Mumbai, or what was then the Bombay Presidency, prided itself on its cosmopolitanism; traded in almost every conceivable product with many different countries; produced crafts that epitomized great beauty and excellence; and flirted with the modern aesthetic that was slowly but surely taking root in its schools of art.