Discover Mumbai: Unique walks unveil the city's hidden stories and facts

How does one truly learn about a city with culture, heritage and nature intricately woven into its cosmopolitan fabric - a city whose history is an integral part of its story and a key factor in shaping its identity? Mumbai isn't an easy city to navigate. From diverse communities to numerous historical facts, you'll find hidden stories at every nook and corner. Yet, people have multiple avenues to discover Mumbai like never before. How?

One way is to embark on curated and guided walks that help explore the city and view it from a different lens. While heritage tours have always guided locals and tourists through the city, Mumbaikars are going beyond and curating walks with unique components like typography, poetry, communities and nature in the city's exploration.

Mumbai through the lens of poetry

When Saranya Subramanian started The Bombay Poetry Crawl in 2020, the objective was simple - to see the city from the lens of poets who lived here and wrote about it.

She shares, "I was always into poetry and my undergrad thesis was on Arun Kolatkar's ‘Kala Ghoda Poems'. For research, I had to go around the city to places mentioned in his poems. I had so much fun doing that, that I thought, why doesn't everybody do these walks? So, I started taking people on walks in 2020, right before the pandemic, and I resumed last year on the ground. I discovered more poets. I discovered that they were in different histories or neighbourhoods of Bombay. And I started connecting those."

What do these walks entail?

"I either pick a poet or I pick an event in history. It's either a Kolatkar, Adil Jussawalla or Eunice de Souza walk or I pick the textile mill strikes or Kamathipura walk. We go to these neighbourhoods and we read poems, either where they were written, where the poets lived or where important events took place," she explains.

This is a novel way of looking at Mumbai's history, heritage and culture, yet people have been receptive.

"It's really important to listen to poets because they make you pause and stop and pay attention. They also make us aware of many histories, and many violences. They're the reason why we are here today. So, it's a sensorial experience of a city essentially," states Subramanian.

What does Mumbai's typography say?

Have you ever come across an inscription at a heritage building or the display board at an old shop and wondered why a particular font, colour, etc., was chosen to write it?

The typography walks by Tanya George help you answer just that.

"This is something that happened in other parts of the world. I had come back from my master's program in typeface design and I had all this information. I would look at the signs and there were stories to tell about all of these things - where these fonts came from, who designed them, stories of the shop owners themselves and why they chose this font. Lots of these stories were tied in with the story of Bombay," she expresses.

George, who has been conducting these walks since 2018, had to curate it with extensive research.

"It's not just technical aspects that I have read from books like historical aspects of font making. I've also been walking these roads since I was a student. I've always been drawn to typography. There is the appreciation for these letters for a very long time. And then I pair that up with oral histories that I might get from the shop owners themselves. It is required to sort of fill in the blanks because these stories are not recorded in any history book as such," she explains.

Curious to know how typography can tell a city's history, we asked George to share an example.

"One example is the Ararat building in Fort. While at first glance, it's not a very impressive sign, but digging a little bit deeper, Ararat refers to a mountain in Armenia. That draws a picture of how Bombay once was home to a lot of Armenians because they were traders and they discovered trade routes to the city. So, this innocuous sign in the middle of Fort opens up a big chunk of Bombay's history that is not the most obvious anymore. There is a church at the bottom of this building. On Sunday mornings, if you go, there would be Syrian, Malabar Syrian Christians in the church because there are no Armenians in the city anymore," she reveals.

Changing the narrative of Mumbai's well-known spots

From Dongri being identified with the underworld to Kamathipura being restricted to a red-light area, Mumbai's narrative has often been shaped and influenced by events in history. However, all these places hold multiple stories within them and not all of these stories are in tandem with their traditional image.

Walks like ‘Kamathipura: Beyond the Brothel' by Zoya Kathawala, help people explore these stories.

"My brother suggested me to curate a Kamathipura walk since we have family history there. The more I started exploring the place, the more interesting things I discovered," reveals Kathawala when asked how this journey began.

"I was clear from the start that I did not want my walk to be voyeuristic. Sex workers have been violently objectified and I did not want to add to it. In no way does the walk shy away from discussing sex work, however it is not the foundation of my narrative, as it generally is for all things Kamathipura.," she elaborates.

Zoya Kathawala (L); Glimpse from the walk 'Kamathipura: Beyond the Brothel' curated by her (R)

On being asked if people were receptive to this idea, she is quick to say, "People ask me if it's safe, which I understand. Usually, my answer is 'I'm a woman doing this'. So I think that immediately makes it a bit safer for them."

"The area is still being perceived as a red-light district, which is not true. Not the entire area historically has ever been a red-light district. So, the fact that somebody was willing to talk about other histories like marginalised communities and other aspects of it that have equally contributed to the city, led to residents being receptive of this idea," she further explains.

Getting to know Mumbai and its communities

There is no dearth of heritage walks in Mumbai. From curated food tours to market explorations, the city offers various avenues for locals as well as tourists to explore the city. Some of these walks also involve local communities in their walks.

"In our Worli village tour, an artist from the village comes and performs. Earlier we used to go to a class where a saxophone artist used to play regional music. He unfortunately passed on. We now have a folk singer who comes and does a performance in the village. We try and also local people cook. For instance, um, you know, we've had folks from Matharpakayi prepare a Christmas meal. We try to involve the community in various forms, be it as walk leaders, artists, chefs, etc., but they are very, very important stakeholders," reveals Harshvardhan Tanwar, co-founder of No Footprints, which conducts heritage walks and tours across the city.

In cities and in bigger metros, the gentrification of culture and spaces happens quicker than what happens in tier two or tier three cities. We are losing out on these communities and these community stories quickly. So how do you preserve it? We think that the lens of tourism is a great way to bring these oral histories, traditions, and cultures to the fore," he adds.

Harshvardhan Tanwar (L); Glimpse from a walk curated by No Footprints, Mumbai (R)

What kind of facts can people discover through heritage walks?

"When we first started out exploring Mumbai, there were a lot of interesting stories that we came across. From the fact that there was Muhammad Ali Jinnah's wife, Rati Jinnah's burial ground in Byculla to the fact that Masina Hospital used to be the family home of the Sassoons, there was a lot to discover," reveals Tanwar. The ice in Bombay used to come from Boston. There are many fascinating stories from the city," he concludes.

While there's too much to explore in the city, Tanwar reveals that historical and food tours pull a larger local crowd whereas culture-based tours are more popular among tourists.

Discovering Mumbai's nature

While Mumbai's architectural and cultural heritage has often attracted fascination from Mumbaikars and tourists alike, its natural treasures, like trees, are also a rich source of information about the city's history.

Trees can tell a lot about the city's roots and urban planning, believes Sananda Mukhopadhyaya, who conducts tree walks across the city.

"The trees that we see in a city will have two different types of histories. One, that they were already there before any ground was broken to build something around them or tree spaces were cleaned up and new trees were planted as part of urban planning. Within the first section, you may have trees that are original inhabitants of the place and whatever got built up was built around them, or it could be one of the first things that was built there, maybe someone had planted a tree, and that has now stayed on. So, for me, trees are markers of a history of a place," she says.

It is rare to see people exploring the natural world through this lens. But Mukhopadhyaya had a natural bond with nature growing up.

"I grew up in a part of the city, which is very green. And I also grew up with a unique set of individuals. My mother, my dad, grandparents on both sides, very green people in general. My grandmom was growing a garden. My grandfather was a big tree-planting person in the neighborhood. My parents are also scientists and their backgrounds are in biology. And so, I think the general curiosity for the natural world or a kinship with the natural world was something that I was very privileged to grow up with," she answers.

Sananda Mukhopadhyaya (L); Glimpse from a tree walk curated by her (R)

How do Mumbai's trees reflect its history? She gives a few examples.

"The ber tree or the Vilayati Imli, also called Jangli Jalebi because it has a lot of jalebi-like seed pods, are all wild trees and can be very old. So, whenever one spots these in the city, it's possible that they were already there and things grew around them," she explains.

"My favourites are the fruiting trees like imli, breadfruit, jackfruit, chikoo, etc. There's a lot of new construction in Bandra, Khar areas where I typically do my walks. But you'll find one of these trees suddenly in the middle of the construction because it was not cut during the construction. Usually, there are markers. The breadfruit tree, especially has its roots in Konkani and East Indian Christian Catholic societies and communities who eat the fruits, which is why you see it a lot in the Goa and Konkan belt," she adds.

"There's a place called Supari Talao in Bandra. It's an open space. At some point in history, there used to be a talao there. In that area, there is a mangrove tree called Barringtonia acutangula, which typically grows submerged in water. It's a nice reminder of the fact that maybe it used to be submerged in that talao and now it remains there," she further reveals.

These are just a few examples of how closely observing trees on natural walks can help one know more about Mumbai. Additionally, other explorations like Mumbai's coastal life walks can help one understand the city's nature and wildlife landscape.

While these unique curated walks explore the history, heritage, culture, lesser-known facts and natural world of the city, they also serve another purpose.

"It's a sort of a mini act of resistance because the city usually doesn't create space for walking. So, just walking, slowing down and looking truly is a way of resisting the city's ebb and flow, the city's speed," Mukhopadhyaya concludes.

Also Read: From Aarey to Navi Mumbai: Mumbai's ongoing battle to preserve its green spaces in an urban hub