We have a legal agreement and I am completely open to any kind of scrutiny. Ive seen my mother fight through thick and thin to continue what she loves. Navigating the spacious sea-facing apartment of Tasneem Zakaria Mehta the managing trustee of the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museumis a bit of an adventure sport, especially if youre a klutz like me. Tasneem Zakaria Mehta. Museum display has moved quite a distance from rows of glass cases but what is the present trend? The art historian and cultural activist says museums need to respond to contemporary culture. Mehta spent her childhood drawing and painting and being a go-getter came naturally. Tasneem Zakaria Mehta is the honorary director of the museum and has a Board of Management and Trustees that include the mayor and the municipal commissioner of Mumbai. Tasneem Zakaria Mehta is an art historian, curator, and cultural activist, best known for bringing the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum (BDL) in Mumbai out of obscurity. The facial expressions of the models and the photographs are almost exact. And no chit-chat." [4], In 1963, Zakaria began her career in journalism as a children's columnist in The Illustrated Weekly of India and worked as Khushwant Singh's assistant editor. "I always came first in art at Cathedral & John Connon School and graduated in Fine Arts from JJ School of Arts," she says. In 2005 the museum was awarded a UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award of Excellence and has become an important cultural hub and platform for showcasing contemporary and historic exhibitions. The city and the Museum developed together, each . I moved cases up and down. Persistence is second nature to Mehta. We are planning an exhibition of the citys architecture and urban development, where more of these maps will be shown. In Photos: Bollywood celebs jet off to the Maldives for a lockdown break, Photos: Winners of the 67th National Film Awards, CM visits Shivneri on Shivaji Maharaj birth anniversary, Terms of Use and Grievance Redressal Policy. Ive always believed that honesty and respect are very closely linked. YOUR HEROES IN REAL LIFE: My real life hero is my dada, Jagat Singh Mehta. Tasneem Zakaria Mehta is an art historian, curator, and cultural activist, best known for bringing the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum (BDL) in Mumbai out of obscurity. I know that it isnt easy to control how others behave but Ive always believed that it is necessary to treat others with the respect you would want them to treat you with. The c onference will be guided by the theme of "Empowerment", with . News Follow on Ahilya Mehta, the striking daughter of Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, managing trustee and honorary director, Bhau Daji Lad Museum and Vikram Singh Mehta, chairman of Brookings, India is a spirited women's empowerment activist at heart. Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, Anjuli Bhargava of 6. I can lose my cool with non-performance. Then you have to get into technical aspects, like the idea of form, the spatial aspect, the vocabulary that's used, etcetera. Today, thanks to Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, it holds its head high, like the monolithic basalt elephant once at the gates of the Elephanta at its entrance. Visiting or Connecting with Mount Holyoke, Copyright 2021 Trustees of Mount Holyoke College. The Museum is also looking at a partnership for special shows with London's Victoria & Albert Museum. My father was in the government, so we lived in this beautiful colonial bungalow on Carmichael Road (now ML Dahanukar Marg) for about 15 years, and this house has a kind of resonance with [the one I grew up in]. Her foyer is now a shrine to feminism, with powerful artworks by Chitra Ganesh, Reena Saini Kallat and Dhruvi Acharya. Tasneem Zakaria Mehta Photos. They cannot be abusive or personal. Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, Honorary Director of Mumbais Dr Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum and Vice-Chairperson of the Indian National Trust for Art and. Right at the centre of the busy Byculla district stands one of the city's great treasures Mumbai's first museum, a Palladian building with Victorian pillars, established in 1872. Tasneem Zakaria Mehta is an art historian, writer, curator, designer, and cultural activist. ALSO READ: Woman is as Woman Does: An ode to womanpower. INSPIRATIONS: My inspiration is my mother its that simple. Topics "I am only focused on being successful at what I do; 90 per cent of the comments in our feedback book are positive. She was on the board of Institute of Hotel Management, Aurangabad. Tasneem Zakaria Mehta is Board Member at Wockhardt Ltd. See Tasneem Zakaria Mehta's compensation, career history, education, & memberships. What makes you take on social justice issues like these? "Ask the museum staff (about our arguments)," he laughs, recalling that every phase of the museum's restoration saw a clash of the titans, especially the one over air-conditioning the space 24x7 as per international standards. 05:58 IST. Maharashtra bypoll: Will Independent candidate Rahul Kalate help BJP in Chinchwad? Pejoratives and putdowns hitting at immigrants have trademarked US presidential nominee, GST Mopup Rises 12% to 1.5 Lakh Crore in Feb, Decathlon in Talks with Indian Govt to Sell Other Brands, Moodys Raises India GDP Forecast to 5.5%, Tasneem Mehta bats bring in the audience, what's the point of the energy and effort?" With the renovation complete - and an expansion project underway - Zakaria Mehta, who is now honorary director of the museum, is focusing on recontextualising the space; safeguarding its history while encouraging contemporary discourse and creating a platform for public outreach. [4], Zakaria joined the Taj Group of Hotels to establish the first-rate five-star hotel, The Taj Residency, on the campus of Maulana Azad College of Arts and Science in Aurangabad. Over the last few years, Bhau Daji Lad, the oldest museum in Mumbai, has been constantly reinventing itself, blurring the lines between old and new, acknowledging and embracing various new forms of art. Museums have changed significantly from what they were even 10 years ago in India, and in many ways the BDL enabled this change. No matter how old he got, his brain never aged. She received the award from President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam for her extensive work in the field of education. What you get on Business Standard Premium? Her husband is famous for being the host of CNN's show "Fareed Zakaria GPS. The elder, Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, is an art historian and writer, living in Mumbai. The couple stayed together for 21 years until Later when Paula filed for divorce and due to unavoidable circumstances they finalized their divorced in 2018. It was the engine driving the whole country. Its perhaps a collection that no museum or gallery could compete with in the country for its sheer breadth, but more importantly, its a living chronicle of Indian art today, and a peek into the mind of its premier historian and curator. She looks highly composed, a far cry from someone who has been through a storm, even as she mentions an upcoming trip to the Himalayas where she would be completely inaccessible. "The [party] MNS says 'This is against Maharashtrian culture.' Human and group interaction is far more valuablethan anything one can find on Google, at least for the time being. The house, too, feels like a throwback to a lost era. The 1872 founded museum had fallen into a derelict condition by the late 1990s. The book Mumbai A City Through Objects compiles 101 objects and stories from the museums collection. In order to access website you need to accept our cookie policy. Her elder biological son, Arshad Zakaria,[11] runs a hedge fund while her younger biological son, Fareed Zakaria, is an editor of Newsweek, and host of Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN. Mumbai: A City through Objects tells the story of a city through unique objects in the collection of the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, the erstwhile Victoria and Albert Museum, Bombay. United States. They've also contended in the past that she hasn't presented museum audits since 2003, has perhaps siphoned funds, and that hosting the Lakme Fashion Show inside the museum is against 'Indian culture' and that she should instead promote skits, lavani, koli and other folk dances. Part of the reason why we [at Bhau Daji] are successful is that we are private-public; and if we were completely private, we would have been 10 times more successful. Whats happening now is a standardisation of culture. Unsurprisingly, most of the writing in the Museum is done by her. It is very different to the normal path a museum treads. Thirty-year-old Kadam feels his work here will better prepare him for a doctorate on the city overseas, a life's goal which materialised courtesy Ms Mehta. The exhibition has been seeing plenty of participation from visitors, something she is pleased about. Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, 60 Till a decade ago, Mumbai's oldest museum, Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, lay forgotten in the Victorian greens of Byculla, Mumbai, completely hidden from the art scene. Were in her favourite corner of the house, an enclosed sit-out area with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the fabled view, lined with bookshelves and an enormous deskthe kind of room youd find not in Mumbai, but in a Ruskin Bond book. Another experience that comes surprisingly in handy at the Museum was her stint at Bloomingdales in New York. People imbibe museum culture if they have been exposed to it from an early ageour efforts are targeted at young age groups and the responsehas been tremendous. Each artist explored a different theme such as alienation, pollution, destruction of biodiversity, unnatural divisions, mutations and distortions, the politics of water and waste and the destruction of landscapes and rivers. It feels nice to learn about the objects that I used to only clean. [10] Collections [ edit] Basalt elephant sculpture from Elephanta Island This is regressive, and at some level, the citizens of Mumbai need to stand up for themselves and counter-argue these baseless statements.". Zakaria was the second wife of Rafiq Zakaria, who was an Indian politician and Islamic religious cleric. In 2003, Mrs. Royalty-free Creative Video Editorial Archive Custom Content Creative Collections. ", De refers to Mehta as 'steel magnolia' tough when required, sentimental at times and as beautiful as an intoxicating flower. Could you tell us more about this? Additionally, honesty is important to me because the truth is something that eventually comes out. 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