Game for a challenge, always

As Administrator of the National Museum, Dr.C.V.Ananda Bose speaks about heritage, new trends in museum culture, Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple and his career
Dr. C. V. Ananda Bose, IAS, a Secretary level officer of the Government of India serving as the Administrator, National Museum, and Vice-Chancellor, National Museum Institute, has the spotlight firmly trained on him. Not surprising, for this bureaucrat heads the five-member panel appointed by the Supreme Court to assess the wealth in the cellars of the Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple.

Ananda Bose was not ready to reveal his findings but said that his mission was to make a scientific plan that would help assess the wealth in the vaults. When asked whether the artefacts of historical and archaeological value would be moved to a museum, he said, “That is one of the mandates of the Supreme Court. Assessing the value of these artefacts is tough. How can one put a price on these priceless antiques? In the National Museum, we have the famous Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-Daro. What price can we put on something like this? It’s only when we take some of them for exhibitions abroad, for the sake of insurance, that we put a price tag on them. We have now decided not to take the AA category artefacts out of the museum after one of them got damaged a bit,” informs Ananda Bose, who has consistently attempted to think out-of-the-box, made innovative decisions.