Tactical City

(this is a highly unstructured and cynical post)
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They are more intelligent than us.

Perhaps the Municipal Corporation did not want the slum dwellers to occupy the pavements along the D N Road in Andheri. Initially, before this, we saw them making tents, temporary poles covered in plastic spilling over the pavement, which also accommodated the formal activities like bus stops. I rarely saw people walking on these pavements.

So they started putting planters alongside the compound wall which screens a huge plot of land reserved for god knows what! I thought they would grow plants in it. They even filled it with soil. Then they started to screen it with iron grills. These grills come till your chest. These grills seem illogical from all possible thinking angles - the maintenance, the gardener or even the passer by.  However, I did not know that things could work out just the other way!

The same old people now started using the grills as walls. Only that the room turned inside out. In the gaps, they created their mini kitchens, where they cook on sigdis. In series, the next one has a well defined lavish bathroom, which also takes care of water buckets and leaves enough space for having a shower. The un necessary stuff of the house is dumped inside the grills (in flower beds) - so they essentially become storage bins. Clothes hang on the grill all along. Eventually, I think they will span it across the trees and make a shelter out of that. But a new house typology is ready!

To see it from Rupali’s point of view (or rather Michael De Carteau): it would be “Tactical” - ironically against DeCarteau’s own “Strategic”.

When I see this, I feel that the corporation rather give them houses, just along the pavement. Or is it that they love living in such frugal conditions. When the government gives them housing, they run away - something that Kairavi’s research points out is that the issue is not space, but economy. Seems like they are like gypsies. They want to keep moving with work. But then, I think they need to carry better houses along. Do they need houses? No. They need infrastructure - anyway they sleep on roads. They like to sleep like that I think. So they must be provided infrastructure that can contain water, stove, clothes, that’s all. All other things are temporary - the comb, soap, food…all of it.

Amidst all this, what about the pavement? Do hell with the pavement: they can take nothing but paver blocks! On this one, the trees bend such that you actually crawl under them at regular intervals. Bus stops? They are dysfunctional any ways! Ah! Perfect! That makes a perfect case in favour of these gypsies! But what about the Flower beds? We can make bowls out of those: Topiary!

Why do such things happen in the city: This shows how “engineer-minded” the people in the system are, and how “creative” people outside it are! And people from developed countries will document all of this to make it into a publication under perhaps two broad heads (suggest more if you can): Housing in India and Product Design.