“Hawaai jahaaz aaya, maaf kijiye. Ek baar phir,” sighs Dr James Nye from the CSIA in crisp Hindi, having just landed in India, while urging us to repeat a question over the phone lines. A bibliographer for Southern Asia at The Uni-versity of Chicago Library, Dr Nye has played a crucial role in documenting and preserving thousands of valuable pieces of writing and resource material available for historians in South Asia through two major initiatives — the Digital South Asia Library and the South Asia Open Archives Initiative.

A view of Bombay from the Rajabai Clock Tower