Mumbai@75 - Making of the Metropolis

Sabyasachi Mukherjee is Director General of CSMVS and also Director of the Postgraduate (Diploma) Programme in Museology and Art Conservation at CSMVS Institute, University of Mumbai. A frequent lecturer and a thought leader, Mr. Mukherjee is an active member of many professional committees, more particularly, the Bizot Group (a distinguished group of American and European museum directors). Under his leadership from 2007, CSMVS has undergone extensive modernization, including refurbishment of the museum’s main building and the establishment of a conservation center, a new Children’s Museum, an institutional archive, new galleries, and educational initiatives. The University of Edinburgh recently conferred upon him the degree of Doctor. He is also a member of the UK – AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council).

Raell Padamsee is a vibrant, versatile, dynamic well- known theatre personality. She is well reputed in the field of theatre production, design and execution of mega events and her company, Ace Productions Pvt. Ltd. has been involved in all these activities for over 20 years. She founded CREATE Foundation, a public charitable trust, in 2002 in loving memory of Pearl Padamsee. The trust aims to devise a revolutionary system of education by using the creative arts. CREATE’s approach is holistic and aims to take learning out of the textbook and into the imagination, to make learning come alive! “Integration” has been the key motto of CREATE Foundation, i.e. integrating children from mainstream schools along with children from underprivileged and challenged backgrounds. CREATE works in integration with many NGO’s for their upliftment and it also gives them amazing opportunities to work in plays by Ace Productions. Various NGO children along with children from the Ace Academy have been part of many Ace projects such as ‘Freedom’, ‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘Grease’. Some of the NGO’s that CREATE has worked with are ADAPT, Aseema, Central Society for the Education of the Deaf, Maharashtra Dyslexia Association, Muktangan, Salaam Baalak Trust, Salaam Bombay Foundation, Seva Sadan Society, Society for the Education of the Crippled, The Akanksha Foundation, The Bombay Community Public Trust, The Vatsalya Foundation, The Victoria Memorial School for the Blind and many more.

Asad Lalljee is SVP, Essar Group, CEO of Avid Learning, a public programming platform, and Curator, Royal Opera House, Mumbai. Under Asad’s leadership, AVID has distinguished itself with a variety of arts and cultural programming and is currently at the forefront of India’s cultural hub. In 2016, he was appointed curator of the newly restored Royal Opera House, Mumbai for which he has designed a robust program. In 2018, Asad was inducted into the prestigious FICCI Art and Culture Committee and has co-convened foray conferences for FICCI’s Smart Cities, Art Cities IP in Mumbai and Bangalore. Asad brings several years of advertising, publishing, marketing and business development experience, both in international and domestic markets. Asad worked for 14 years in New York with companies like McCann-Erickson and Hill Holiday (IPG). He holds a B.A. in Economics from St. Xavier's College and an M.A. in Global Marketing Communications from Emerson College, Boston.

Vikas Dilawari is a practicing conservation architect with three decades of experience exclusively in the conservation field, ranging from urban to architecture. He has done his double Masters in Conservation from School of Planning and Architecture (New Delhi) and from the University of York (Distinction). He was the Head of Department of Conservation Department at Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture (KRVIA) Mumbai from its inception in 2007 till Aug 2014. His practice has successfully executed several conservation projects ranging from prime landmarks to unloved buildings of Mumbai. He was instrumental with INTACH Mumbai chapter to list the CMST (or VT) station as a World Heritage Site in 2004. Several of his projects have received national and international recognition. A total of 17 of his projects have won UNESCO ASIA PACIFIC Awards for Cultural Preservation in SE Asia. He has successfully restored many significant cultural heritage projects in Mumbai and in other parts of the country like; the Agakhan Palace Pune, Dr Bhau Daji lad Museum; The Durbar Hall in Kochi (2010) which was one of the venues for the first biennale in the country. , The adaptive reuse of Patiala House in Dehradun as an Oil Museum (2007), The restoration of Archiepiscopal palace in Old Goa (2002-2004) and now the CSMVS Museum. His other recent project includes restoration of several important public fountains of Mumbai like the Muljee Jetha, Wellington and the Flora Fountain. Apart from this Mr Dilawari is also busy restoring the “Unloved normal fabric of the city” that is century old tenanted trust properties belonging to GZRF (a Parsee trust) or a tenanted commercial building in Dr DN Road i.e., Commissariat Building. Mr Dilawari has lectured and written extensively on the subject of conservation nationally and internationally. He has been a member of the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee (MHCC) on several occasions.

Dr. Manjiri Kamat is Professor of History and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Mumbai. Dr Kamat holds M.Phil and Ph.D degrees in History from the University of Cambridge. She has recently co- edited the book, Bombay Before Mumbai: Essays in Honour of Jim Masselos with Prashant Kidambi and Rachel Dwyer published by Hurst Publishers, London, Oxford University Press, New York and Penguin Random House, Delhi in 2019. Dr Kamat is also editor of Mumbai Past and Present: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Challenges and editor of Mumbai Kaal ani Aaj: Aitihasik Akalan ani Samakaleen Awhana. Dr Kamat is Member of the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee of the MCGM, Member of the Board of Trustees of the CSMVS Museum, External Associate at the Centre for Global Health Histories, University of York, Ambassador for the Association of Commonwealth Universities, London and a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

Rochelle Potkar is author of The Arithmetic of Breasts and other stories (fiction), Four Degrees of Separation (poetry), and Paper Asylum (prose), Rochelle Potkar is the alumna of Iowa’s International Writing Program (2015) and Charles Wallace Writer’s fellowship, Stirling (2017). Her prose was performed on stages in Iowa and Portland. She is the winner of the 2016 Open Road Review story contest for The leaves of the deodar. Her poem Cellular: P.O.W. was shortlisted for the 2017 Hungry hill competition, Ireland, and Ground up won third place at the David Burland poetry prize 2017. She has read her poetry at a few festivals, recently Lviv International Literature Festival, Ukraine. Her short story Chit Mahal (The Enclave) appeared in the anthology: The Best of Asian Short Stories (TBASS) by Kitaab International. She is the editor of the Goan-Irish anthology, Goa: a garland of poems, with Gabriel Rosenstock. She is also editing Joseph Furtado’s manuscript of prose and poetry. https://rochellepotkar.com.

Naresh Fernandes is the editor of Scroll.in, a digital news publication. He is the author of City Adrift: A Short Biography of Bombay and Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age.