India, Sept. 21 -- A visit to the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya here is unlike walking through a conventional museum, where objects are arranged behind glass or inside galleries.

Spread across a vast natural landscape, the museum takes visitors through different cultural settings of India through houses, settlements, trails and community traditions. Within a few hours, one can move from a Himalayan village to a tribal habitat, a desert settlement or a coastal village, and then encounter a traditional Dogra house from Jammu.

The idea behind this unusual presentation is not simply to preserve old houses and objects. IGRMS describes itself as a "Living Culture Museum", based on the understanding that culture is dynamic and mu...