A royal heir carves plans for the country's first private museum. Entering Nirbhay Kumar Singh's office inside a rundown building on Kolkata's bustling Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road is like entering the warehouse of a museum. Priceless artefacts lie stacked higgledy-piggledy everywhere.
Chandeliers "" grand old beauties that must have graced many a durbar hall "" hang by the dozen from the ceiling. Glass cupboards are crammed with hundreds of porcelain dolls, lamps, vases, watches, old coins, stamps and what have you.
Paintings "" Ravi Verma, Kangra erotic art "" cover the walls; and every square inch of the floor is lined with period furniture, huge painted vases, alabaster figures, floor lanterns, life-size brass statues.
The collection must be worth crores (Rs 225 crore according to one media report). Singh says that there must be around 15,000 pieces "" and he has just begun counting. It might not be the Salarjung Museum, perhaps, but it is quite significant for a private, one-man collection.
Of course, much of Singh's collection is inherited. He comes from the zamindar family of Nathnagar near Bhagalpur and is now a jeweller specialising in antique-styled ornaments thick with diamonds and other precious stones and a discerning client list that includes Tina Ambani and Ramola Bachchan. But the inveterate collector has also added to it considerably.
Until a few months ago, very few people knew about Singh's collection. But Singh is working to change that, prodded by the booming market in art and art objects, on the one hand, and on the other hand, age, ill health and childlessness, and the question, "What will happen to all this after me?"
Typically, Singh has grand plans. There will be a "multiplex" somewhere near Mumbai, which will house a museum, an auction centre, and a manufacturing and training centre for traditional jewellery and art d'objects.
The funds needed (Rs 50 crore to start with) will be provided by a partner who'll get a share in the company that manages the project. Later, if he needs more funds, the winner of the Bharat Udyog Ratan award in 2005, plans to tap the markets via an initial public offer (IPO).
But there are difficulties. There is the Antiquities Act which restricts dealings in artefacts more than 100 years old. Singh also needed to transfer his heirlooms to the company "" Art-O-Gem (Jewellers) "" since it was these assets he was planning to capitalise on.
But as far as the taxmen were concerned the priceless collection didn't exist, except as an addendum, "collection of art and curios not included" in his returns. So how was one to get them to see the light of day without paying a fortune in long-term capital gains tax? He also had to catalogue his collection, photograph and value it according to price trends in the international markets.
In the past year or so, Singh has made some progress. He has transferred assets worth more than Rs 4 crore to the books of his company, taking advantage of the provision in the Income Tax Act which allows such transfers to take place as per the value on April 1, 1981 or the actual cost of acquisition.
This has enabled Singh to bring down the value of his collection to Rs 55 lakh, which means he can get away by paying a one-time tax of a few lakhs. Singh has also increased the authorised capital of his company from Rs 1 crore to Rs 5 crore, with an eye on the IPO.
If everything falls into place, as Singh expects it to, India may well get its first privately managed museum in a few years time.
