The Guild, Mumbai and the Kerala Museum, Kochi are delighted to present the exhibition, ‘Enlightenment from an Unlikely Envelope’: Archives of Adil Jussawalla, curated by Deeptha Achar and Chithra K. S. 

Drawing from the archives of the poet and photographer Adil Jussawalla, this exhibition showcases a small selection of diverse materials from his personal archives. These archival exhibits that offer a glimpse into his individual world also suggest entry points into a historical time—a time when a post-independence modernism was being fashioned across the arts.  

The title of the show is taken from his poem ‘Ellora’ where he talks of stumbling upon an envelope full of negatives of photographs that he took at Ellora caves. This phrase seems emblematic of the archival impulse to store and to organize, and sometimes find hidden gems, new configurations, unexpected directions. This is what the exhibition sets out to do. 

The works featured here do not merely stand as a testimony to the life and legacy of this phenomenal writer, they also give clues to his creative process and revisit the contexts of his work, not through the frames of a strict chronology, but through a reiteration of the fragmentary nature of the archive itself. 

Please mark your calendars for the preview the Kerala Museum, Kochi on December 7th from 11:30 onwards. We look forward to seeing you there. 

Adil Jussawalla is an Indian poet, photographer, and editor. One of the most influential figures in Indian English poetry, Jussawalla has published poetry in Land’s End (1962), Missing Person (1976), Trying to Say Goodbye (2011), Shorelines (2019) and Earth: Poems for Veronik (2023). Anthologies of his prose writing include Maps for a Mortal Moon (2014) and the mixed I Dreamt a Horse Fell from the Sky (2015), The Magic Hand of Chance (2021) and the recent Body of Evidence: in sickness & in health (2024). He has edited a number of important anthologies, including New Writing in India (1974) and Statements: An Anthology of Indian Prose in English (1977, co-edited with Eunice D’Souza). Jussawalla played a significant role in Indian literary circles from the 1970s as part of the poet's publishing co-operative The Clearing House. Jussawalla has also been literary editor at a number of publications, including The Indian Express, The Express Magazine and Debonair.

Deeptha Achar has very recently retired as Professor at the Department of English, Faculty of Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujarat. She has co-edited, among others Towards New Art History: Studies in Indian Art (2003), and Articulating Resistance: Art and Activism (2012). Her book, Nation Region Modernity: The Art of K Venkatappa, co-edited with Pushpamala N. (2025) has recently been published. She is the series editor of the Different Tales series, a multilanguage series of illustrated children’s books that thematize marginalized childhoods and contexts. Her research interests include visual culture studies and childhood studies.

Chithra K. S. is an archivist and art historian based in Vadodara. She has an MA in Museology and a PhD in Art History from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. She has worked with various private collections archiving, digitizing, researching and curating content for diverse platforms including Jackfruit Research and Design, Asia Art Archive in India and the Museum of Art and Photography. She has, in the past, been a curatorial associate at The Guild Art Gallery.  She is currently engaged in archiving the historical collection of the Gaekwads of Baroda for the Maharaja Fatehsingh Museum Trust, Baroda.