In the end, he won the battle, but lost the war. After fighting government red tape—and cancer—for almost six years, M.C. Joshi, former director of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), managed to arrange a rare exhibition of Indian artefacts in France, but did not live long enough to see it.

For even as the exhibition displaying 110 artefacts from the Gupta period opened at the Grande Palais museum in Paris on April 4, Joshi passed away quietly in India on January 1. Fittingly enough, the exhibition was dedicated to him.

The director of ASI from 1994-98 and chairman of the National Artefacts Screening Committe since then, Joshi spent six years compiling, selecting and transporting various statues of Lord Vishnu, Buddha, terracotta figures, stucco works, coins and paintings from across the country to Delhi. The pieces are conservatively priced at above Rs 1,000 crore.

“We travelled from north India’s first Hindu temple in Madhya Pradesh to the Ajanta caves and Sarnath, including 17 museums, to put together the collection,” says Raghuraj Singh Chauhan, director of Exhibitions of the National Museum. “Initially we were offered another museum, but Joshi would settle for nothing but the best.”

This tenacity also showed when the exhibition was on the verge of being shelved twice due to red tape and the sheer volume of work, but Joshi brought it back on track, say his friends.

The hard work is paying off. According to officials, the exhibition is expected to draw a record 150,000-strong crowd by the time it ends on June 5. “We are getting more requests from countries across the world who want to see our artefacts,” says Chauhan.

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