Why this illustrator is archiving Mumbai through her social media project

Updated On: 12 November, 2021 10:26 AM IST | Mumbai | Anindita Paul

With her Mapping Mumbai social media project, a Bandra-based illustrator is creating a picture archive of the city’s iconic landmarks and zeitgeist

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Girgaum

The year was 2002 and Kripa Bhatia was still a student at Sir JJ School of Art. “We were sent across the city to practise our sketching and that’s when I began to draw the sights that reminded me of the city’s quintessential character,” she says. Subsequently, life took Bhatia to various other cities around the world. “When I returned to Mumbai in 2018, I found my old sketchbook from college and decided to take up the project again. You see, when you revisit your familiar haunts, you view them through a fresh lens. While the first time around, I was more interested in beautifying my sketches, now, I’m letting the city be my teacher,” she adds. In that, Bhatia began to embrace Mumbai with all its rough edges instead of glossing over them. The result is a beautiful social media project that she’s dubbed as Mapping Mumbai.

Hill Road, Bandra West