5:00pm
Join us at TARQ for "Bombay/Bambai/Mumbai: Tales from a lost city," on Saturday, 16 July at 5 PM. This panel discussion will accompany our current show Event, Memory, Metaphor which explores language and the archive.
The panel will feature journalist Naresh Fernandes, whose Taj Mahal Foxtrot explores the history of Bombay Jazz, historian Simin Patel who tells stories of city structures through her organisation Bombaywalla Historical Works, and filmmaker Somnath Waghmare, whose upcoming film Chaityabhumi examines the narratives around Babasaheb Ambedkar’s final resting place in Dadar.
The speakers will not only discuss their work but also expand upon a few fundamental underlying questions: why do we remember; what are the ways in which we access the past; and what are the ways in which the permanence of things we take for granted can often be an illusion in the shifting sands of history.
Inspired by Kashmiri poet Agha Shahid Ali’s poem “Farewell,” Event, Memory, Metaphor explores the intricate intertwining of memory and history to ask fundamental questions about how — and why — we access the past through artworks by Areez Katki, Garima Gupta, Muzzumil Ruheel, Parag Tandel, Philippe Calia, Saju Kunhan, Sameer Kulavoor, and Saubiya Chasmawala.
The panel will feature journalist Naresh Fernandes, whose Taj Mahal Foxtrot explores the history of Bombay Jazz, historian Simin Patel who tells stories of city structures through her organisation Bombaywalla Historical Works, and filmmaker Somnath Waghmare, whose upcoming film Chaityabhumi examines the narratives around Babasaheb Ambedkar’s final resting place in Dadar.
The speakers will not only discuss their work but also expand upon a few fundamental underlying questions: why do we remember; what are the ways in which we access the past; and what are the ways in which the permanence of things we take for granted can often be an illusion in the shifting sands of history.
Inspired by Kashmiri poet Agha Shahid Ali’s poem “Farewell,” Event, Memory, Metaphor explores the intricate intertwining of memory and history to ask fundamental questions about how — and why — we access the past through artworks by Areez Katki, Garima Gupta, Muzzumil Ruheel, Parag Tandel, Philippe Calia, Saju Kunhan, Sameer Kulavoor, and Saubiya Chasmawala.
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About the Speakers
Naresh Fernandes is a Mumbai based journalist and author. He is the editor of Scroll.in, a digital daily. He was previously the editor-in-chief of Time Out India, and worked at The Times of India in Mumbai and The Wall Street Journal in New York. His journalism has appeared in the leading magazines, publications and newspapers alI over the world. He is the author of Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age in 2012 and City Adrift: A Short Biography in Bombay in 2013 amongst other books. He is also on the editorial policy board of the World Policy Journal.
Simin Patel, also known as Miss Bombaywalla, is the founder director of Bombaywalla Historical Works, an organisation that creates awareness about Bombay’s built environment and social history. Simin has received a New India Foundation Fellowship (2021-22) to complete her book manuscript on the Irani Restaurants of Bombay. She completed her PhD in Modern South Asian History from the University of Oxford in 2015. She was a Clarendon Scholar at Balliol College.
Somnath Waghmare, a documentary filmmaker born in Malewadi, a small village in western Maharashtra. He has made two documentary films 'I am not a Witch' (2015) and 'The Battle of Bhima Koregaon: An Unending Journey' (2017) which was a timely documentation of the gathering of lakhs of Dalits near Pune City. Both documentaries have been screened in different cities of India and abroad and have gained appreciation.
He continues to explore and document the histories of Dalit mass movement in India. His current film project, ‘Chaityabhumi’ is about a location in Dadar, Mumbai, where lakhs of people come to pay their respects twice a year to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, a leader whose writings and work against India’s discriminatory caste system resonates and inspires people even today. Another ongoing project of his is ‘Gail and Bharat’, a documentary biopic of Dr. Gail Omvedt. Somnath is also working on a Dalit singers' song documentation project called ‘The Ambedkar Age Digital Bookmobile'.
He is currently pursuing a Ph.D in Social Sciences from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He did his Bachelor of Arts in Sociology at a small town near his village. His Master of Arts degree was in Media and Communication Studies from Pune University.
