India, Aug. 9 -- It looks like someone has hurriedly left their office.

On a wooden desk in a lamplit recess, an animated computer screen stands mid-scroll. Books, a set of keys and tasteful knick-knacks sit on nearby end tables.

Then one notices an unusual element of decor: a translucent parchment screen above the desk. Pressed into it are replicas of plant specimens. A 10-metre scroll unrolls from ceiling to floor nearby, holding rows and rows of entries (more on this in a bit).

One of the books on the desk turns out to hold Sangam-era poetry in the original Tamil. A cabinet nearby turns out to be a repository of images drawn from a long-gone Pondicherry.

Past and present, history and lore, art and archive merge in the exhibition ti...