In Shreerang's Words

Why I Chose to Tell Nana's Story

I am a sixth-generation descendant of Jagannath “Nana” Shankarshet (Sunkersett).

For a long time, Nana was, to me, a name from our family history. I knew he was someone important; someone whose name was attached to schools, institutions and places across Mumbai. But while researching his life for our podcast, Magic Nana Ajoba, I began to understand that Nana was much more than a distinguished ancestor.

I began this project thinking I was documenting a family story. Somewhere along the way, I realised I was learning from him.

What surprised me most was the breadth of his contribution. Nana lived at a time when Mumbai was still taking shape, yet he understood that building a city was not only about roads, buildings or institutions. It was about people, their education, opportunity and the future. He worked with others, crossed boundaries, supported causes larger than himself, and was willing to take responsibility for helping his community move forward.

Our family has held onto more than stories about him. We have also inherited a sense of responsibility attached to his name: the belief that privilege should come with purpose, and that each generation has an opportunity to contribute something meaningful to the next.

That is one reason I chose to work on this project now.

We live in a time when many of us worry about our public spaces, civic life, institutions and the everyday experience of being a citizen. There are challenges around us; some enormous, others very ordinary. It can sometimes feel easier to point them out than to ask what each of us can do differently.

Nana's life offers me a more hopeful way to look at that question.

He reminds me that change does not always begin with waiting for someone else. It can begin with one person choosing to act, to contribute, to educate, to build, and to bring others along.

Telling the story honestly

Being Nana's descendant makes this story deeply personal. It also makes me conscious of the responsibility that comes with telling it.

Family memory is valuable, but it is not always complete or impartial. So as I have researched Nana's life, I have tried to distinguish between what our family remembers, what has been passed down to us, and what the historical record can establish.

Where the evidence is clear, I want to let it speak for itself. Where questions remain, I would rather acknowledge them than fill the gaps with certainty.

My hope in sharing Nana's story publicly is not to glorify the past, but to make it useful for the future.

I hope children discover a role model, families discover a story worth passing on, and all of us find a small reminder that citizenship is also about participation.

And I hope this archive will not remain only my family's telling of Nana's story. If you are a historian, researcher, family member, or simply someone who knows something about Nana that I have missed, I hope you will share it. A forgotten history becomes richer when more people help bring it back into the light.

I don't know if I can ever tell Nana's story with all the honesty and humility it deserves. But I know that I would rather try to carry his values forward than simply preserve his name in the past.