Chinese fortunes and other Mumbai memories

Updated On: 09 January, 2015 08:32 AM IST | | Soma Das and Suprita Mitter

Memory & The Maximum City is a session at the Godrej India Culture Lab highlighting the collective memories of Mumbai and the need to re-look at it. Talks by Anusha Yadav, founder of the Indian Memory Project, oral historian Dr Indira Chowdhury and artist Ali Akbar Mehta will focus on the subject

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Mumbai Guide, Kwan Tai Shek Chinese temple, Mazgaon, Ali Akbar Mehta, Anusha Yadav, Dr Indira Chowdhury, Dockyard Road Station, Anthony's Rest

Change leaves behind memories of the past and an awareness of the good and the bad elements in it. And if one considers a rapidly changing city like Mumbai — in terms of its geography, architecture, people and experiences — it becomes even more imperative to celebrate and learn from the memories of the city.

The Kwan Tai Shek Chinese temple prayer sheets at Mazgaon; it is part of Ali Akbar Mehta’s archival project Site: Stage: Structure, which documents the changing demographic and visual identity of spaces in Mazgaon and Wadibunder. Seen here is a huge board, with files of bamboo sheets fixed under different numbers, in Chinese script. Each number has a corresponding fortune card where people read their fortune, annually.