NOBO - North Bombay

Before I left for the USA, I remember obsessively capturing the city spaces in my phone camera. It was a ritual for me to empty the hundreds of pictures I would click every month into a well organised folder structure in my computer drive. I have more than about 2000 uncategorised pictures of the city and things I was clicking in general. I wasn't really a photographer, am not one even now. But there was something that I was "seeing" in the city then - something that interested me.

For my first year in the US, I took a lot of pictures too. Initially it was the newness of the place as well as the new phone that I was perhaps exploring. However by the second year and the end of my stay in the country, I started feeling too bored to take pictures. The place became boring to shoot. Moreover, it was so pretty that I was fed up of it. Further I also feel it was so strictly planned and each piece of architecture was so meticulously designed that it forced a certain kind of structured gaze of the camera. One could only shot those buildings in a particular way else they wouldn't give you the "right" effect.

After I came back in India, I have hardly photographed the place I encounter while traveling, essentially the northern suburbs. I have now been back for two years in Mumbai, and have merely added two more folders with a few pics added to the collection. In the beginning I was wondering if I have just grown out of the phenomenon of taking pictures. I thought that i had done it enough and would just be taking photographs for the heck of it.

Today, for some reason I feel that it is more about the part of city I traverse to and the mode in which I travel that has caused me to look at the city space quite differently. Unlike earlier, I travel to the north of the city instead of the south now. Essentially I move against the dominant motion of the city every morning. In some ways it is great because I escape almost all traffic and also that the place is much closer to my house. However what I have also come to realize is that actually the morning train travel to South of the city was much more interesting and visually appealing than the current northward journey.

Over my train journey to Dadar from Goregaon (North to South Bombay), for example, I would get actively engaged in looking at the emerging constructions  and perpetually changing landscapes along the railways. I could see the incomplete buildings, layers of landscapes at a vantage points, old and new fabrics juxtaposed, the geometrical architecture of the stations framing the city, the follies of unused redundant platform structures, and so on. Moving through Dadar every morning too, was a fascinating encounter with hundreds of commuters as well as shopkeepers setting their stalls around the precinct. The walk offered one of the most intimate sensorial experiences. From the school (Rachna Sansad), one could see at a distance the way in which new architecture was slowly transforming the low rise, sloping roof settlements. Seeing this kind of a change as a distant observer allowed thought to constantly reel in the head.

The northern suburbs, on the other hand, have a very different vibe. Awkwardly fussy, the places are hard to fathom. There's no particular architectural character to any of the northern suburbs. Indeed there are sub cultures but as an urban form, all are pretty uniform. Moving through the suburbs is no exciting task. Most of these suburbs have taken upon them hideous-looking and bulky infrastructures like the skywalks that, while allowing you to trespass the chaos on ground, become endless bland corridors with little scope for human activity. Over my road journey don't get to see any thing, besides the glass malls and cellular residential complexes - those that become more and more gated day by day. There are no public buildings so to say, except the aesthetically devoid institutions like police stations and ward offices.

I don't know how to describe this loss - for the reasons are compounded. Firstly, I have not seen any thing worthwhile in the north, and that has resulted in a poor photo-documentation of the place! I wouldn't know what to talk about the stretch even if I took pictures of what I see around me! Such factors immediately point us to think - what architectural value does the northern Bombay hold for any one? Beyond the Prithvi Theatre or Juhu Beach in Andheri, one can hardly count any places of public interest in the north-western part of the city. Cultural institutions like Dinanath Mangeshkar hall, or many similar spaces are not designed to be public in nature. Acutely closed off to the public, cladded in glass and aluminium curtain walls, these precincts repel people physically as well as visually.

Other places such as the Film City has forever been closed to locals. The BNHS and the national park are the natural reserves that have become mere functional recreational landscapes for most. Besides, these are not places that are easily accessible to everyone, especially those who live beyond the railway lines towards the West. In addition, these are hardly places where communal events for the city can be organized. A common cultural space where people can spend their time, loiter, engage in art, music, dance and such other activities is almost absent in this part of the city. Lacking cultural infrastructure, the north remains dormant, and garners no interest amongst the youth, who prefer to travel south for their recreational cravings.

I have also come to believe that in the absence of such events and happening, there is something distinctly identifiable as a "north-bombay mentality" - a deeply middle class, bourgeoisie world view that thinks of the south as work and the north as living. The students' worldviews (having taught at Rachna Sansad which attracted students from all over the city) differ, their ambitions differ - most of the times much narrow. These are repercussions of a space that suffers low cultural value in its built as well as intellectual environment.

It is true that these observations have become starker after witnessing the "suburbia" in the West. For a long time, "suburban" was a term so close to me that I never read as "sub-urban" but "su-bur-ban". It might sound laughable to the readers, but that the "sub-urban" becomes a second-grade life of the urban; a step down in hierarchy of environment, a "less happening" (as my sister-in-law would point out, who grew up in South Mumbai) place became evident to me only through my alienated experience of the American suburbia, removed from my own. Yet, the American suburbia is much more polarised than what we live in, and I will spare that comparison for a different time. Meanwhile, I look for ways in which I can make the northern suburbs of Bombay more interesting for myself, beyond the adventures of Essel World, Water Kingdom and the Golden Pagoda!

Tree house in National Park

Designed by a young tribal boy in National Park, this is one of the finest and most organic tree house I have witnessed in real. I have not seen (m)any tree houses, but of the several designs I often see on the internet, the labour of love and inventiveness in the working out of many details of this shelter is evident. The house is literally supported on tree branches, and the access to it happens through a ladder crafted into the branches, sometimes nooks of the tree itself.

As you reach up, you are taken into a series of enclosures that are formed by woven mats, karvy walls, and the tree itself. Windows and doors are framed using discarded wood frames of urban houses. There are several rooms on the first floor, along with a cot as well as a washing cistern (lying dysfunctional). Each room generously opens to the outside or a balcony appropriately scaled to the tree. The house is cozy, yet comfortable.

Overall, the house becomes a gateway, allowing people to pass through it. It is a marvellous piece of architecture. We are told that a leapord had once climbed up the house and fell down as it rested on the edge of its balcony. After that, the house lies abandoned in fear of animals. We climbed up the house to relive the imagination of this young untrained architect.

Art at Vile Parle

Our students painting the Vile Parle Station Overbridge. Ideas from Sol Lewitt's instructions taken one step further along with colour palettes from Wes Anderson movies.
People walking along seeing the art work are enjoying the shapes and colours. An middle-aged guy paused and asked - "Is a bird going to fly up from here"? Art makes people think in new directions. Good art provokes the appreciation of everyday surroundings.

Lines like tracks become clouds and blend in the air. Reminding of speeding trains with puking smoke, the art work connects back nostalgic entry of the steam engine into the city 150 years ago, yet in a celebratory, contemporary spirit. Colours of the day and night, compliment the environment around as well as themselves within the canvas.

Many more readings. However, later!

On the inauguration day:

Escalators / Elasticity

Elasticity

Rapidly modernizing with technology, cities like Mumbai constantly present their inhabitants with a range of new objects in urban space to interact with. Several infrastructure transit nodes are now installed with ATVMs (Automatic Ticket Vending Machines), LCD indicators, air-conditioned coaches and other such automated paraphernalia. However, one of the most significant additions is that of escalators at all metro and train stations. Unlike in shopping malls, these escalators are open to be accessed by a completely different class of users. People of all kinds in the city - young, old, infants, men, women, villagers, migrants, rich, poor are subject to this new animated object that takes them from one floor level to another.

While plugged in as a relief to reduce friction of mobility, avoid stampedes during peak hours, making commute accessible and easy for all, the watching this piece of resilient machine in a public space like the railway station of Mumbai is pure entertainment. Every morning I see novel encounters of people with this machinic animal. Women in saris pull them high to avoid their flowing ends to get into the complicated machinery, children wait for their parents to land them on the rising steps, villagers look astonished and puzzled in deciding the right moment to step into the moving platform, they wait for others to hold hands and give them the confidence and assurance that the machine wouldn't overpower them, or many are confused where to keep the hands once on the moving treads - finally holding the shoulders of strangers standing besides them... It is pure joy to look at such first experiences with new technology. In their apprehension and curiosity, people begin to learn and discover a new city. The escalator becomes an elastic medium that gets people together in a unique way, resolving and releasing new tensions of the city. At the same time, does this not become art in public space - if one considers the pure function of art to amuse people in a way that they find their own selves?

This was an article written for a column on 'Urban Delight' to the theme of 'Resilience and Sustainability' for a magazine "My Liveable City". The small write-up didn't make up for the magazine because I could not provide photographic evidence to qualify it as urban delight. Given the unexpected nature of encountering the event, as well as the constraints of framing a natural shot of the techno-cultural human act, it would take a lot of work and thinking to get this done. However, I have also come to realise that a city like Mumbai cannot be proved to be visually delightful. Most Asian cities are about living and being - and it is challenging to capture its life visually.

Few days after I closed off on the writing, I went to a mall where I encountered what I wanted to share. Low light, lack of camera skill, limitation of technology - all the issues came back. Nevertheless I took a video. Perhaps, this would still work to get a sense of the kind of delight, and hesitation I aimed to talk about.

The article is a reworked version of "Escalators" post on this blog.

The Golden Pagoda, Gorai

Two days ago, Dipti (Bhaindarkar) and I decided to visit the Golden Pagoda that is right off Gorai - pretty close to our school. The plan was just to get a feel of vacation - something that all the other schools are having right now. After much procrastination and thinking about the heat, I gave in to Dipti's idea. 

Taking the boat from Gorai jetty and reaching the other end of the city was quite fun. I had quickly made myself aware of the location of the Golden Pagoda before we left - which is when I realised that it was right next to the site of Essel World. I was quite surprised. The first time I visited the Pagoda, I had taken a road route and it seemed to be quite far. When I saw on the map, I became more aware not only of the proximity of the place, but also the geography of Mumbai more closely!

When landing from the sea side, you have to walk about 800 metres from the jetty point until you reach the entrance. Basically, the pathway to the pagoda is a shoot off from that of the Essel World. The pathway is banked with gabien walls and almost zero foliage - and in addition you may not find any internal transport to reach the pagoda. Not that it requires one, but in excruciating heat, for old people and some emergency situations, it's just nicer to have some transportation to take up upto the entrance of the pagoda.

I was quite flustered walking in the hot sun and approaching the monument under the open burning sky. While one would assume that the positioning of the staircase frontally is supposed to take you inside the pagoda axially, in reality you have to walk all around the building to actually enter it. The entrance is discreet, and hardly noticeable, lost in scale. What is further disappointing is that no one apart from those who have done a 10-day Vipaasna course can enter the main dome of the Golden Pagoda. Thus, all we could do is enter a transparent tunnel from where we saw the large column-free domed space above which, the sacred relics of Buddha have supposedly been kept! In about a minute, this spectacle was over.

Dipti and I came out almost instantly, because we were already sweating and the interiors of this tunnel had no air circulation at all. Escaping from this suffocating space, we decided to sit down under one of the massive columns. I took a nap on its plinth while Dipti sat thinking nothing (or looking around). In my usual cynicism, I kept complaining about the poor detailing, the hollow flooring, the gaudy goldens and the cheap decorations onto the Pagoda. Everything seemed extremely patchy.

After our nap, we decided to visit the canteen. Located in the underbelly of the pagoda are some carelessly kept art galleries, and further, the canteen. A large flattened sweeping space, the canteen sucked at any kind of aesthetic. Should such an expensive pagoda deserve a canteen that has column-beam lowly ceiling and the cheapest of plastic chairs and tables? It had no view, no natural light or air, nothing! I wondered what spirit of space they wanted to create? But wait - did they even think about the spirit of this complex in the first place? On exit we saw the plan of the site, and it felt like the final year design project, something of the sort of a "Mediation Centre" of an average student from the architecture school.

The return journey was nicer. The sun had set and we took the boat, where although we couldn't find a seat, we saw the pagoda in soft light, along with the louder ones of its counterpart - the Essel World rides. At that moment, a new landscape revealed - on one hand was  the a place of entertainment, pleasure and earthly phenomenal delights. while just adjacent was the Vipaasna centre, the place to leave all of one's worldly desires. One was shouting out loud while the other was sitting quietly. One where life was bouncing from the ground, and other where life ideally retires. Seeing them sitting together side by side as we moved away from it on our boat on water was quite fascinating. Floating between the two ends, we kept taking pictures pondering at the absurd profundity of city life.