To understand the collection, one must first understand its founder. Anujsingh is not a billionaire art buyer or a hereditary maharaja. He is, by training, a researcher of material culture—specifically the everyday objects of the Indian heartland. In the early 2010s, while documenting folk rituals in the Bundelkhand region, he noticed a disturbing trend. Heirlooms that had been passed down for generations—brass grain measures, hand-painted storytelling scrolls ( Pabuji ki phad ), and even temple bells cast in lost-wax methods—were being sold as scrap metal to traveling traders. The speed of India’s modernization was turning heritage into raw material.
This approach transforms objects into primary historical documents. Academic researchers from institutions like the National Museum Institute in Delhi and the University of Edinburgh have used the collection to study pre-colonial metallurgy and trade routes, because the artifacts often display alloy compositions unique to specific regions. anujsingh collection
The collection is not without controversy. Some mainstream museologists argue that important cultural objects should reside in government institutions, not private hands. Anujsingh counters that state museums in India are often underfunded, understaffed, and filled with poorly labeled items gathering dust. "My warehouse has a lower humidity variance than the National Museum’s textile wing," he noted in a 2023 interview. "Preservation isn’t about who owns it; it’s about who cares for it." To understand the collection, one must first understand