Folder Ambitions!

History is all around us.

On a Wednesday afternoon, archivist Dhatri S pulls out a delicate-looking folder from a large mobile file cabinet. She rotates the black wheel at the front to single-handedly move the entire row of cabinets, and when we wonder how heavy the cabinets are, she laughs, “We do this all the time.” The LURU newsletter team is at the Archives at NCBS, a public centre for the history of science, located in the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru.

The folder contains sketches of birds — meticulously drawn figures with little notes to go with it, all by Jamal Ara — touted as India’s first female ornithologist.

Sorting through history, finding science

When we visit the Archives, an exhibition called Into the Scrub (an exhibition funded by IFA and curated in collaboration with The Archives at NCBS) by Delhi-based designer Moomal is on display. Into the Scrub is on for a few more weeks before two artists, Iyesha Geeth Abbas and Abhilasha NS, will take the stage starting in December — the next exhibits vary from analyses of the Archives’s ecological collections to displays of magazines like the Swasth Hind, which are also stored here.

Moomal’s exhibition on Jamal Ara’s work is immersive — as soon as we enter the room, the scientist’s voice fills our ears and we realise she is describing the birds we’ve just seen sketches of. Her writing is captivating, and we want to keep listening. Moomal’s exploration of Ara’s work ranges from explorations of science communication, the wonderful pleasures of bird watching, and a careful and close account of what happens when one pays attention to the world around them. A map of colours, for example, represents Ara’s correspondence with the people in her life and we find ourselves looking closely to take in all the details.

Leafing through the pages

The Archives is located in the basement of a building on the NCBS campus that stretches across a vast expanse of 20 acres. When the afternoon light makes its way into the office space, we’re struck by the silence that usually remains elusive in the city. It feels particularly fitting when Dhatri tells us that the oldest record in the Archives is from 1876.

The centre is open to the public. They only require an email so security clearance is not tedious, but their regular line-up of events (talks, exhibitions, and workshops) reminds us that we need more avenues for conversations about the sciences. The reading room, meant exclusively for visitors, is full of books that delve into the philosophy of science — we notice Plato, amongst other writers. We begin leafing through a book on neurobiology when Dhatri shows us that their catalogue is completely digitised.

She shows us the same Jamal Ara sketch of the Marabou stork that we just saw on frail paper, and there’s a moment of relief — that these works of art will remain alive forever. Since these documents are available to the public, they also allow for parallel conversations to happen all at once. Jamal Ara’s life and work has been studied extensively by a range of practitioners, including filmmaker Paromita Vohra, who is currently the Obaid Siddiqui Chair for this year, and is looking at the Jamal Ara archives. It’s clear that this dialogue is only possible when knowledge remains accessible to everyone, and we can see why the archives have been open to the public (since 2019).

Discoveries anew

Dhatri tells us about Silverfish, the magazine run by the Archives, and we find an article that looks at the difference between how male and female scientists are remembered. The magazine, she says, is meant to not only “tell stories of the collections, but also of the archives themselves.” She emphasises the importance of thinking about how histories are decoded and written, and we begin thinking about Jamal Ara’s notes to her grandchild.

This intimacy and subjectivity within the sciences is an example of the kind of conversations that become possible when the humanities and the sciences come together. Of all the people on campus, Dhatri mentions that the Archives usually sees visitors from the master’s in wildlife studies course, because this is mostly where human beings interact with animals.

Before we leave, we stop by the quarantine section, where new documents are stored before the archivists get their hands (figuratively) dirty with them. There’s a sealed Godrej cupboard which stores documents with active fungus and termite infestations, and in the accompanying room, we peep in on the archivists — masked and gloved up — as they work through some of these pages. They show us cool, psychedelic patterns left behind by termites, and these damages become archival details of their own. We feel like the entire world is on display, we just have to pay attention.

The details: The Archives at NCBS is located at NCBS, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, GKVK Campus, Bellary Road. Visit between 10:30 am–5:30 pm on weekdays, and weekends upon request. Email them at archives@ncbs.res.in and follow them for upcoming events. Or look through their digital collection here.