One of the portraits, likely taken between the 1910s and 1940s. Photo: Cuba Photographic Studio. Purchased 1998 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds. Te Papa
Sometime in 1998 Te Papa Museum in Wellington acquired a collection of 4000 glass plate negatives that had been found in a cupboard in what was once the central city's Cuba Photographic studios.
In this collection were about 95 images of early Indian immigrants to the city - portraits of men, women and some children.
Voices talks to Lalita Kasanji who's been on a mission with curator Stephanie Gibson to identify the people in the images and their descendants in the wider Indian community of Wellington.
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How it all began though was with the first port of call, 92-year-old Ruxmaniben, who is Kasanji's mother, and identified one of the men in these portraits - her husband.
Lalita Kasanji and her mother, Ruxmaniben Kasanji, of the Wellington Indian Association Photo: RNZ
“Stephanie [Gibson] had emailed this image, and it was of a gentleman in a white pinstripe jacket, and probably in his mid to late 20s. And she said do you know who this person might be? And I had a look and I thought, I wonder if it’s my dad?”
Kasanji's not sure what made her think the image might be her father.
“Maybe I saw an image many years ago, and it kind of registered at the back of my mind. Or maybe there was something about his face that was just sort of familiar, because I don't ever remember my father looking like this. I was born when my dad was almost, I think 40, so he was bald by the time I remembered him.
“Anyway, I had it printed off and I showed it to mum a couple of days later. And I said, do you by chance know who this is? She was cooking and she had a quick look and said, ‘that’s your father’.”
Kasanji has developed a questionnaire with Te Papa to try to identify the people captured in the images. The pictures are all digitised and available at the Te papa website, with the prompt: ‘Is this your grandfather?’
Left: "Man, 1 June 1937, Wellington". Right: "Four men, circa 1930, Wellington" Photo: Cuba Photographic Studio. Purchased 1998 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds. Te Papa (B.046866, B.047051)
Gibson hopes the questionnaire will give the ancestors of these men and women a better sense of their history.
“In the future, if the future generation want to explore their genealogy, it would be helpful for them, not only to know the names of these people but also where they came from.”
The Wellington Indian Association turns 100 years in 2025, and by then Kasanji is pretty sure they'll get enough responses to help build the blocks to tell the stories behind these portraits.
"Indians, although we've been here for over a hundred years, we're still considered migrants. We've been here for a long time and are part of New Zealand's fabric."