No image or text may be used or published elsewhere without prior permission. Any unauthorised use may lead to prompt legal action. Permission requests can be sent to hello@indianmemoryproject.com
• Image rights belong to the guardian(s) of the photograph.
• Text rights belong to Indian Memory Project unless stated otherwise.
• The project does not share any information about contributors without their explicit permission.
We hope you enjoy this archive as much as we enjoy building it.
A culture’s memory survives because a few understood that their stories were worth keeping.
Our Circle of Patrons are the people who carry that understanding forward — whose support allows us to seek out, document, and preserve personal histories that would otherwise disappear. Their generosity has helped build an archive that now reaches schools, institutions, researchers, and families across the Subcontinent and the world.
This is quiet, lasting work. And it has been made possible with people like them. If you’d like to become a patron of the project please write to us at hello@indianmemoryproject.com
No image or text may be used or published elsewhere without prior permission. Any unauthorised use may lead to prompt legal action. Permission requests can be sent here.
• Image rights belong to the guardian(s) of the photograph.
• Text rights belong to Indian Memory Project unless stated otherwise.
• The project does not share any information about contributors without their explicit permission.
We hope you enjoy this archive as much as we enjoy building it.
My father Umedrai was born as one of nine children to Harjivan Bhaichand Mehta and Kamala (originally Triveni) in the small town of Ahmednagar, Maharashtra India. My father’s family belonged to a tiny community of Gujarati merchants in Ahmednagar and my mother Hansa was born in Nakuru, Kenya to Nagardas
My grandmother was born in the Phatak family in Pune, Maharashtra in 1926. Her father Duttatre Phatak worked with the British Indian Railways, and was also the manager of a record label ‘Orion’ that no longer exists.
Migration from the Doaba area of Punjab has been prolific and in our family, it started initially with my maternal grandfather. Doaba is now called the ‘NRI Hub of Punjab’ as a consequence of a significant percentage migration of the Doabias.
This is a picture of my mother Papia Chakrabarti. She was born to an eye surgeon in a wealthy family of Calcutta (now Kolkata). The family was conservative and girls were not allowed to interact with men outside of their family or even dress up stylishly, as it was considered
Anusha Yadav is a multidisciplinary artist working in medium of photography, paper art, and graphic design. She is the founder of Indian Memory Project, one of the most influential online public memory projects globally. The project has subsequently reshaped how archives are engaged with, generating thousands of academic, editorial, and cultural enquiries worldwide.
Anusha’s practice bridges artistic conversation, and public viewership through investigative research, aesthetical advantage, emotional connection, and care. Rooted in personal curiosities and lived inquiry, her work demonstrates that cultural knowledge can be rigorous, generous and delightful, without relying on obscurity or institutional language as a measure of seriousness.
Anusha lives and works in India, and intermittently in the UK. She can by reached at hello@indianmemoryproject.com. You can see more of her work at anushayadav.com and at foldbyanushayadav.com
