Terracottas of Bihar (600 BC to 1000 AD)
The grant was very useful in preparing my MA dissertation in this subject and increased my interest in it. I am now (2001) pursuing my PhD in the field of terracotta art. I have published articles on contemporary terracotta art of Mithila (Bihar) and taught related subjects to MA students.
Coromandel Trade
The Visiting Fellowship gave me the opportunity to visit the museums and archives in the UK, including the Victoria and Albert Museum. The award also enabled me to gain more professional expertise and to enrich my knowledge of museology. I prepared a monograph about my experience in the UK and presented research papers to history fora on the Indian objects in the Coromandel- English trade.
The construction of indigenous gods and linkages with the communities of eastern Uttar Pradesh
The award of a Small Study and Research grant proved invaluable for me for reasons probably different from many others. I was not a young scholar but a university teacher in mid-career, and had developed a serious academic interest in an area that was not directly related to my formal discipline of English literature. My independent readings in sociology, anthropology and history, along with my travels in the Indian countryside had opened the fresh arena of the creation and continuation of village gods as an intergral part of cultural existence in India.
Relief sculptures as revealed from Hero-stones in Thiruvannamalai, Samburayar and North Arcot Districts of Tamilnadu
The grant was very helpful to me in allowing me to discover a number of hero-stones and inscriptions during the Pallava and Chola periods in Vellore and Thiruvannamalai districts and to prepare research articles in vernacular research magazines like Hindu, Avanam, Pulamai, Dinamani etc. I am currently (2001) doing PhD research in the field of Hero-stones .
Study of South Indian sculpture in UK museum collections.
I visited many museums in the UK during my stay there, and both documented South Indian sculptures and bronzes and display methods. I subsequently developed display methods for the Government Museums at Vellore and Cuddalore. Since then I have received a fellowship awarded by the Institute for Social Science and Research at Vellore. I delivered about 100 lectures in the period between 1994 and 2001 to college and school students, Rotary and other clubs, and groups of visitors to the Vellore museum.
Anugraha images of Siva
The award, granted when I was pursuing my research for a PhD at Banaras Hindu University, helped me with data collection from museums and sites in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa as well as west and south India. I achieved my PhD and published two articles and presented two papers in national seminars in the years immediately following that while pursuing post-doctoral research. My academic career has continued.
Islamic architecture in Tamil Nadu
This award was instrumental to carry out a research study on a litte known subject - the Islamic architecture in Tamil Nadu, and was only possible to achieve because of the award.
An interpretative study of the text and paintings of Sursagar from the Mewar School
I received the award at the outset of my research for the doctoral thesis. The timely award enabled me to travel to museums and document the set of paintings which formed a good portion of my research material. It also facilitated the correspondence with various other museums abroad and in India, enablng me to gather information regarding their collections and most specifically the Sursagar set of Mewar that I was working on. I could also use the money of the award on processing of photographs of the paintings, copies of which I evenutally sent to the Trust as part of my project report.
Iconography of Narasimha as portrayed in literature and sculpture with special reference to Tamilnadu
The topic chosen for the first award was not a usual one and I had to visit most of the places from where I had drawn reference. The fieldwork done for this award was a very exciting experience it helped me to look into many other aspects connected with t. The study has actually resulted in a source book for future reference and this is in my opinion the most satisfying part of the Study Grant.
The process and results of the commercialisation of Warli tribal Painting
I would like to thank the Trustees for their timely and generous awards. The first award allowed me to conduct research among the Warli tribe in Maharashtra and to write up the results of this research for my MA dissertation at the National Museum Institute in Delhi. After my MA and spurred on by my work on the Warlis I moved to Cambridge (UK) in 1994 to do an M Phil in Social Anthropology.The M Phil was funded by a Cambridge ODASS award. I subsequently took a PhD on matweaving in South India at the University of Cambridge and now teach at the University of Manchester.
