LitClub Book Presentation: 5th March 2025 - Presentation of book by Amrita Shah (author)

Release of ASM Journal Volume 92

We are happy to share with you that on 26 th November 2024, on the occasion of the 220 th Foundation Day of the Asiatic, the Society has released Volume 92 of the ASM Journal. This is the latest volume of the journal released by the Society. The editors of the journal are Professor Madhu Kelkar and Professor Usha R Vijailakshmi. It has come to the Society's notice that some unscrupulous elements are collecting money for publishing papers in the Society's Journal and are offering bogus certificates. Some of the candidates had mailed these certificates to the Society. These certificates carry the names of the editors of previous volumes. The Asiatic Society does not collect money for publishing research papers in its journal, nor does it guarantee publication, and most importantly it does not issue any certificate. Authors must verify with the Society before submitting any papers, and papers will be published only after rigorous peer review and editing. The Society does not take responsibility for any payments made to third parties claiming to represent the Society, or for their papers appearing in a cloned/spam journal. Ours is a print-only journal. We do not publish the journal online.

THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF MUMBAI
The Literary Club of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai
Book Launch and Discussion Programme
presents the book “The Other Mohan in Britain’s Indian Ocean Empire”
by author Amrita Shah
Wednesday, 5th March 2025 at 5.00 p.m.

The Literary Club of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai takes pleasure in inviting you to the presentation of the book “The Other Mohan in Britain’s Indian Ocean Empire” by the author Amrita Shah on Wednesday, 5th March 2025 at 5.00 p.m. in the Durbar Hall of the Society.

Part travelogue, part memoir, part family history and imbued with rigorous scholarship, “The Other Mohan in Britain’s Indian Ocean Empire,” published by Harper Collins, is an original path breaking work, where Amrita Shah takes the reader into an era of unprecedented global mobility. Traders and professionals who followed indentured workers to Mauritius and South Africa were called ‘passenger’ Indians. A celebrated Indian passenger, Mohandas Gandhi went to Natal in 1893. A decade later, an undistinguished Indian passenger, the author’s great grandfather Mohanlal Killavala arrived in Natal. As a child growing up in India, the author was fascinated by the mystery surrounding her ancestor’s journey. Why had he gone there? What was the name of the woman he met along the way, who gave birth to her grandmother? And did he know Gandhi? There were no clues at home, no reminiscences, no letters, documents, memorabilia, not even a photograph. She embarked on a search for her wandering forefather with limited expectations but doors opened serendipitously and a paper trail emerged, strewn in archives across South Africa, Mauritius, the UK and India, providing answers but also revealing the immense value of researching a small man’s history.

Amrita Shah is a writer, journalist and independent scholar, she has been a member of our Society over many years. Her wonderfully engaging book sets on record for the first time a sweeping social and business history of the Indian diaspora in the Indian Ocean. The author relates an intensely personal story intertwined with the history of the British Empire.
Please join us for this talk which promises to be both scholarly and fascinating.

Tea will be served at 4.30 pm

- Prof. Mangala Sirdeshpande, Hon. Secretary Asiatic Society of Mumbai
- Meenal Kshirsagar, Vice President of the Society & Chairperson - ASM LitClub