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.
In the 1950s, the Assam Government cracked down on Communists, and my father became a ‘Most Wanted Man’ with a bounty of Rs. 10,000 Rupees on his head, dead or alive. My father kept moving from state to country lines under the radar across the region, Myanmar, Bhutan, Tibet and
In Karachi, the Marathe family lived in the prominent locality of Bandar road (now Muhammad Ali Jinnah Road). The Maharashtrian community with approximately 50,000 people enjoyed tremendous social currency and power and they demonstrated the vibrant culture of the community in Karachi, where people from all religions and ethnicities celebrated
Just before their marriage, a respected family astrologer and priest was called in who went through Dadaji’s horoscope with a fine tooth comb. It seems that he predicted that Dadaji would marry twice. The planetary positions could not lie, he proclaimed, and it was unavoidable destiny.
This photograph of my father Nomal Mech, at 19 years old, (bottom right) with his colleagues was taken in 1980 in the Assam Studio in Shillong, Meghalaya when they were enrolled in a three-month training program to become telephone switchboard operators. It was probably the first time he was getting
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
