.... Shaila-ben pioneered an unprecedented kind of cultural and discursive platform in Mumbai. Today, with so many successor forms of the MPCVA — Jnanapravaha, AVID Learning, G5A, the academic programming at the CSMVS and the BDL museums, to name a few — it is worth recalling the courage with which she addressed, with few exemplars at hand, the question of what a ‘para-academic platform’ could mean. This term, which we have crafted during the last decade, did not exist then. But that is what the MPCVA was. Shaila-ben wished to invite artists, critics, gallerists, scholars, and viewers into a hospitable ethos of dialogue. With warmth and grace, she presided over a transformation of the adda into an institution that could retain its informal spirit.

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