We join in on the installation of a Mauryan pillar capital, which has travelled all the way from Bihar Museum to Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS). Weighing nearly a colossal 700 kg, the relic needs a dozen pair of hands, a resounding "Om" from the production staff, and bright focus lights to get it settled on its stand. CSMVS's director, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, watches with bated breath, and tells us, "It's like a Bollywood film set."

Only, what's before our eyes, is no fiction; it's all historical fact set in stone, ceramic and metal as an ambitious exhibition, presented collaboratively by CSMVS, The British Museum (London) and National Museum (New Delhi) counts down to its opening on November 11. The ambitiousness of the exhibition is reflected both in the number of objects as well as its title, India and the World: A history in nine stories. What appears at first reading like a chronological historical survey of India, the exhibition is in fact a web, offering parallels and comparisons across the world, right from the birth of the earliest civilizations.