If there was any doubt that mainstream Indian schooling is unimaginative, it is confirmed when Nachiket Barve says he, like all students in Mumbai, learned Maratha history for several years but much of it was by rote. "We don't have a detailed archive for instance, of costumes and adornments at any of our museums. In schools, we are taught dates. And it's instilled in the students early on that the Mughals were invaders," he says. Fashion designer and costume maker, Barve, visited museums in Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad but came back realising that the Maratha period's interesting costume history and exquisite handiwork with armoury has escaped documentation.

Barve was researching for a project that has required him to imagine and craft costumes for the key cast in Ajay Devgn's upcoming historical, Tanhaji.