Sharada Dwivedi

Just days after I mentioned Bombay: The Cities Within as a landmark book, comes the news that Sharada Dwivedi, co-author of the volume along with Rahul Mehrotra, has died. Sharada did as much as anybody to raise awareness about the city's built heritage, and to remove the post-colonial and chauvinistic ideological blinkers that had for decades prevented a celebration of that heritage. Her steady, sensible, and committed advocacy will be deeply missed.