Archives at NCBS : Events - Between the Real and the Record: Building Stories from Archives
Archives at NCBS | Public Lecture Series
71st edition
Talks framed around explorations in and around archives. Discussions by artists, archivists, academics, lawyers, teachers, journalists and others.
Between the Real and the Record
Building Stories from Archives
Amrita Shah
Fri, Nov 21, 2025. 5 PM
Lecture Hall – 1 (Haapus), NCBS
Details: https://bit.ly/APLS-AS
Abstract:
For me, any piece of writing begins with a compelling question, which then initiates a search for possible answers. Research is the bedrock of non-fiction. In literary non-fiction it has a role in determining not only the content but also the structure and style of the work. Not bound by disciplinary constraints with regard to research methodology as a historian or a scientist might be, the literary non-fiction writer is free to look anywhere and everywhere for data. In literary non-fiction then the archive has a conceptual fluidity taking multiple forms: a geographical site, a collection of maps, a roomful of personal belongings or a conventional repository of official documents.
In this talk, I will reflect on three decades of diving into archives towards telling stories from media, science, urban societies and personal histories. I will attempt to describe the research journey that culminated in the making of four bodies of work: The Other Mohan in Britain's Indian Ocean Empire (2024), Ahmedabad: A City in the World (2015), Vikram Sarabhai: A Life (2007) and Telly-Guillotined: How Television Changed India (2019/1997).
Bio:
Amrita Shah is a former editor of Elle and Debonair, is an ex-contributing editor with the Indian Express, and has worked for the US-based Time-Life News Service. She has been a fellow of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University, the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, the Research Institute Advanced De Nantes and the Centre for Contemporary Studies at the Indian Institute of Science. She is a recipient of the Fulbright, the Homi Bhabha and the New India Foundation fellowships. She is the author of Vikram Sarabhai: A Life (Penguin, 2007), Ahmedabad: A City in the World (Bloomsbury, 2015), Telly-Guillotined: How Television Changed India (Sage-Yoda, 2019/1997) and The Other Mohan in Britain's Indian Ocean Empire (HarperCollins, 2024).