With such personages as Hariaudh ji, Babu Shyam Sunder Das, Acharya Shukla, Keshav Prasad Misra, art historians like Dr. Moti Chandra and Dr. Birbal Sahni, historian Dr. Altekar, artistes like Ustad Ram Prasad, Omkarnath Thakur or Heerabai Badodekar present in the house on any given day, Anand's interest and involvement with art-forms intensified.
From 1951 to 1955 he led another excavation at Kumhrar, under the auspices of the Jayaswal Institute; his discoveries there confirmed the theories of D. B. Spooner that the site, which Altekar described as "probably the earliest huge stone-pillared structure to be built by Indian architects", was a relic of the Maurya Empire.