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

THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF MUMBAI
The Literary Club of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai
Book Launch and Discussion Programme
Marathi Book - पेरिप्लस ऑफ हिंदुस्थान (हिंदुस्थानची प्रदक्षिणा)
Tuesday 25th February 2025 at 4.30 p.m.

The Literary Club of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai takes pleasure in inviting you to a book launch and discussion programme on a book in Marathi ‘पेरिप्लस ऑफ हिन्दुस्थान (हिन्दुस्थानची प्रदक्षिणा)’ by Sunanda Bhosekar, a Life Member of our Society on Tuesday 25th February 2025 at 4.30 p.m. in the Durbar Hall of the Society.

– The book, “The Periplus. of Hindustan,” is an expansive review of the perception of India by some foreign travellers like Megasthenes, Ibn Batuta, Alberuni, Ralph Fitch, Thomas Roe, to name just a few. A well-researched book and one of its kind, it gives a vivid picture of the history, geography, civilization, culture, customs and traditions in India for almost 2000 years from the period from B.C. 302 to C.E. 1681.

The book is an outcome of a column written by Sunanda Bhosekar in the Marathi daily Praha in the year 2011. Further research was undertaken by the author from 2018-2019, this has been a continuous process of in -depth study since then.

Sunanda Bhosekar has done her Master’s Degree in Political Science and History from the University of Mumbai. She has a keen interest in travel, archaeology, history, various cultures and political thought. Sunanda pursued her career in the field of Finance at the Reserve Bank of India from 1980 to 2018. A poet by heart, she has to her credit three poetry collections – 'अनोळखी प्रदेशात,' 'रे गोपाळा' and 'गळ्यावरचा निळा डाग.' She has contributed many articles and columns in various Marathi newspapers and periodicals. Her career as a writer has been growing continuously while she was in the RBI but now it has taken centre stage since she is aspiring to become both an intellectual writer and a sensitive poet.

The programme will be presided over by Shri Kumar Ketkar, writer, senior journalist and a member of the Rajya Sabha till recently.

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

THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF MUMBAI

The Literary Club of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai
Discussion around the autobiographical book
“Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder” by Salman Rushdie
Monday 20th January at 5 p.m.

The Literary Club of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai takes pleasure in inviting you and your friends to a discussion around the autobiographical book “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder” published (April 2024) by Salman Rushdie on Monday 20th January 2025, at 5.00 p.m. in the Durbar Hall of the Society.

All are invited to join us for this discussion.

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

Dear friends,

Dr Aroon Tikekar Centre for Advanced Studies takes pleasure in inviting you and your friends to the annual programme of the Centre to award the Tikekar Memorial Fellowship and join us to listen to the chief guest and keynote speaker Dr. Prachi Deshpande.

The programme will be held on Saturday, February 1, 2025 at 5:30 PM in the Durbar Hall of The Asiatic Society of Mumbai.

Dr. Prachi Deshpande, is a historian and, Professor in History at Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata. She is a recipient of prestigious awards and recognitions, including the Infosys Prize 2020, an annual award by Infosys Science Foundation. Her book ‘Creative Past’ was published in Y2007 and ‘Scripts of Power: Writing, Language, Practices, and Cultural History in Western India’ was published in Y2023.

Title of her Talk: “’Script’ing the History of Language.”
 

ABSTRACT: Usually, we think of language history in two ways: a chronological story of its literature from the earliest text to the present, or the way it evolved within a language family over centuries. Scripts are usually seen as technical instruments for writing language, or as symbols of identity. Can a focus on the relationship between scripts, language, and writing, give us insights into how, where, and by whom a language was used, and how people thought about language in different ways? In this talk she will focus on the cursive Modi script, which was used to write business documents in Marathi for several centuries, to chart a history of Marathi usage and users over the last few hundred years. Through the example of Modi and Marathi, she will talk about changing attitudes and practices of language in Maharashtra and beyond, such as literacy and orality, documentation and archiving, multilinguality, and linguistic identity. 

In keeping with the tradition of the annual programme of the Centre, the seventh Tikekar Memorial Fellow 2025, Mr. Aslam Saiyad, co-founder of Hallu Hallu, documentary photographer and environmentalist, will present a synopsis of his work done. It will be followed by Mr. Elloit Cardozo briefly introducing the work he proposes to do as a Fellow 2026.

You are requested to join us for tea at 5 PM at the venue.  

- Mr. Vilas Dhavale, Chairperson, Dr. Aroon Tikekar Centre for Advanced Studies, ASM
- Prof. Mangala Sirdeshpande, Hon. Secretary, The Asiatic Society of Mumbai
 

THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF MUMBAI
The Mumbai Research Centre
talk by Sharon Irani on John Lockwood Kipling

Before the son, there was “the Pater” step into the world of John Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard Kipling and uncover the art and stories that shaped his extraordinary life — from his beginnings at the South Kensington Museum (today the V&A) to his Indian sojourns at Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art in Bombay and Mayo School of Industrial Arts in Lahore, and as the iconic illustrator of his sons most famous work “The Jungle Book”.

A talk by Sharon Irani for the Mumbai Research Centre of The Asiatic Society of Mumbai.

Date: 20th December 2024 (Friday)
Time: 05:00 PM
Tea will be served at 04:30 PM
Venue: Durbar Hall, The Asiatic Society of Mumbai

- Prof. Mangala Sirdeshpande , Hon. Secretary Asiatic Society of Mumbai.
- Dr. Shehernaz Nalwalla , Vice President of the Society & Chairperson – MRC

THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF MUMBAI
The Mumbai Research Centre

The Mumbai Research Center of The Asiatic Society of Mumbai invites you to the Parsi Artistry Salon by Tinaz Nooshian, editor and textiles chronicler.
Join her for an illustrated talk on the trading acumen and artisanship of the Zoroastrians of India as you sail in imaginary clippers from Gujarat to China, in the company of Bombay’s risk-taking Parsi merchants.
Browse through family heirlooms and Sino-Indian textiles - the Garo, Surat’s jari kaam and Navsari’s Dana ni toran work.

Saturday, 7th December, 2004
Talk begins at 5 PM. Tea will be served at 4.30 PM
Durbar Hall, The Asiatic Society of Mumbai

- Prof. Mangala Sirdeshpande, Hon. Secretary, Asiatic Society of Mumbai .
- Dr. Shehernaz Nalwalla, Vice President of the Society & Chairperson – MRC