From gathering the late Marlon Brando's memorabilia to preserving posters and knick-knacks from the Beatles and the films of Akira Kurosawa and Raj Kapoor - one Indian is bent on creating one of the world's largest personal collection of cinema material.

Art collector Neville Tuli is on a mission to create a grand institute that straddles all forms of art - from cinema to canvases, from architecture to clothing and, as a first step, he is been collecting artefacts on cinema from around the world.

"How can you build a world-class institute, a world-class facility without a sense of history? We have to create that sense of history if we want to become the best in the world," Tuli told.

The head of Osian's art and auction foundation, Tuli spent around Rs.10 million ($225,000) at the Brando auction, snapping up among other things the script of "Mutiny on the Bounty" for $30,000, the publicity material for "One-Eyed Jack" for $8,000, letters to Brando from Francis Ford Coppola and a Christmas card from Sophia Coppola for $30,000, Brando's personal home video collection for $8,000 and a fertility sculpture gifted to the legendary actor by Val Kilmer for $10,000.

Tuli said his own admiration for Brando gave him a personal stake in the purchase.

"His death is a sad, a tragic kind of thing, such a strong, virile man, and he always felt for the injustices of the world. And in many ways the world treated him unjustly in the end," said Tuli who has changed the face of Indian art through Osian's and brought it greater world acclaim and far higher valuation than ever before.

Tuli said that the Brando acquisitions were one of the many things he has been buying to equip his dream institute. "Brando was a great actor and we need the notes of great actors. India's greatest challenge is to transform idealism into material form.

"This is what we are doing. We are accumulating history so that the next generation has reference points. How will film students in future know what silent era shots looked like? How are we going to them those scenes? We must preserve, accumulate and sustain and share."

Among the things that Tuli has gathered are movie memorabilia from the early and late 1950s, comedies of old British cinema, political propaganda films from the 1940s and 50s, Olympic posters of the 1960s, Bimal Roy's photographs, posters of old Bengali films, Raj Kapoor's own hand drawn posters and posters painted by Akira Kurosawa himself.

"These things are priceless," said Tuli. "The posters that Kurosawa designed, for instance, they are wonderful and Bimal Roy's black and white photos are phenomenal. I've also been collecting memorabilia from the early Beatles and Lawrence of Arabia."

The only thing that he regrets not being able to get a hold on is the script of "The Godfather" - the film Brando would perhaps be best remembered for. Tuli was outbid for it.

Tuli said that his institute would try to develop a sense of history in cinema for students, allowing them to delve into history to get an understanding of the present. "We must develop an intellectual framework for cinema."