Sabyasachi Mukherjee

I consider myself very fortunate to have been selected for the UK Visiting Fellowship 2002 – 03 under the Nehru Trust for the Indian Collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum for a period of 3 months. During the training programme at the V&A, London under the able guidance of Dr. Deborah Swallow, then Director of Collections, Asian Department, for the first time I could learn an integrated approach to deal with areas such as art acquisition, documentation, exhibition policy, planning, designing, installation and evaluation. It helped me immensely to understand the issues that prevailed in most of the Indian Museums and more particularly my own institute – CSMVS, Mumbai.

Today, after a gap of 12 years when I look at the transformation brought into the CSMVS and the recognition bestowed by world communities as being one of the finest museums in South and South-East Asia, I as an alumnus of the Nehru Trust UK Visiting Fellowship programme feel proud and happy for such an achievement and thank the Trustees of the Nehru Trust for the Indian Collections at the V&A for giving me such an opportunity which resulted in an enriching experience of a lifetime.