In Mumbai, remaining static is a luxury afforded either by circumstance, chance, or apathy. These vestiges of staticity, few and far between as they are, continue to draw photographic archivists and oral historians alike, who recognise that the best response to a “fast disappearing city” is often documentation. Recording a story before erasure is not just an act of preservation, but also a way of learning how to remember. 

Photographer-filmmaker Sunhil Sippy’s new coffee table book, Raceday (Pictor), through a series of 150-odd photographs taken within the environs of Mahalaxmi Racecourse over a decade, trains the lens on a world only ever known to its inhabitants and frequenters. In making the unfamiliar familiar, Sippy’s pictorial keepsake, curated from over tens of thousands of images, offers a new way of seeing, making it another important volume in the growing tome of archives about the city.