I look forward to having one of Jeremy’s sculptures created using our typewriters: Navroze Godrej

His earliest memory of hearing the sound of the keys on a typewriter is when he was a class five student at The Cathedral & John Connon School in south Mumbai. He was learning to type on it. “I remember the clicking sounds of the keys as I practised typing. Ever since I remember, it has always been part of our heritage,” says 33-year-old Navroze Godrej, head, innovation and strategy, Godrej & Boyce. The typewriter’s heritage goes back to Navroze’s grandfather, Naval Pirojsha Godrej, who inherited Godrej & Boyce. He took on foreign typewriter manufacturers Remington and Halda by launching the Godrej typewriter in 1955. Naturally then, when it was finally phased out in 2011, it evoked a lot of nostalgia for the Godrej clan. “It was the right decision and it marked the end of an era,” Navroze says. “I guess looking back, it did not make sense (to continue production of the typewriters). But the design challenge continued to amaze me. It was quite a marvel.”


Former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru using a Godrej typewriter (Pic: Godrej archives)

In the two years since his return to India after completing his masters from the IIT Institute of Design in Chicago, Navroze has been consumed by innovation and design. So although consigned to history, the Godrej typewriter found its way into his office. It was given a contemporary twist with a screen attached to it. Speaking of the experiment, Navroze says, “We hooked the one typewriter I have kept at Hubble, the design centre at Godrej & Boyce, to an USB drive — and we could see what we typed on a monitor. That is an amazing combination of past and future.”

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Navroze’s mother, patron and lover of arts, Pheroza J Godrej was very keen that the design of the typewriter had to be celebrated and brought to life in some way through the Artist in Residence programme. “So group archivist Vrinda Pathare reached out to US sculptor Jeremy Mayer,” Navroze says. Happily, everything worked out well. He is using thousands of parts of the last manual Godrej typewriters as part of a 13-foot-tall installation with the help of former students of JJ School of Arts and Raffles Design International.

A Godrej typewriter installation (Pic: Chirodeep Chaudhuri)

Godrej Archives has collaborated with Mayer to not only celebrate 54 years of their journey of manufacturing typewriters but also to inspire imaginative thinking that drive innovation and develop futuristic technology. “I definitely look forward to having one of Jeremy’s sculptures created using Godrej typewriters at my workplace. In a way, I feel we have not lost the typewriter. It has been resurrected in a new avatar with a new meaning,” says Navroze.