Wanted: Chroniclers of our neighbourhoods

The city needs more young chroniclers who can come forward to record its undocumented localities, especially beyond SoBo, before they all become footnotes in our nostalgia-soaked conversations

“There are so many unexplored stories and sites beyond the original walls of the Fort; you have to just go looking for them. And, they must be documented.” Those words by Captain Ramesh Babu resonated long after our insightful chat on a Sunday afternoon. The person in question is the author of a recent release, My Own Mazagon that now graces the Bombay/Mumbai section of my bookshelf. It’s a delightful ode to the neighbourhood’s rich local history and diverse communities. He was genuinely concerned about the lack of documentation of equally significant areas in the original seven islands, and Salcette that forms a large chunk of today’s Greater Mumbai.

But what the retired Indian Navy man reiterated was only a nudge about the many times this columnist has been reminded of that reality. Over the years, the city’s rich and glorious past has been dissected and explained and yet, somehow, there is a feeling that when it comes to smaller neighbourhoods, localities, and especially today’s suburbs, we are only scratching the surface.

I recall a conversation from a couple of years ago that I had with Atul Kumar, of Art Deco Mumbai, whose team studies and documents Art Deco architecture in structures across the city and the suburbs. It’s a wonderful initiative that’s doing its bit to highlight an important architectural style’s impact on city life in the mid-20th century and later. We discussed extended suburbs like Borivli and my home, Mulund. And I ended up sharing a few observations —where redevelopment had cast its ugly shadow over my beloved suburb, robbing it of some of its character. I was more than happy at that time to help with my two bits of research and pictorial references. And then, everyone’s favourite villain—the pandemic—struck. I slipped into survival mode, and just like the rest of the world, it  became all about combating the wretched virus.

When the time was right to step out and explore parts of my own suburb, to my horror, I realised that, lockdown or not, the land sharks were busy at work while everyone else stayed indoors. A favourite single screen cinema from my childhood, quaint single-storeyed bungalows that were straight out of any Enid Blyton classic, and some buildings that came up in the 1950s and 60s that boasted of long verandahs, vernacular elements like chajjas and porticos were all gone. In its place, all I could see were neck-craning tin sheet partitions announcing the arrival of swanky residential skyscrapers that offered you the moon. Well, you get the drift.  I was sorely disappointed. Had I got there earlier, I could have at least been able to document its existence.  

I am pretty sure that such instances must be played out across the city and its suburbs by the dozen. The suburbs in fact, are far more vulnerable. I spotted a similar change when I returned to Thane’s Charai neighbourhood near Talao Pali in December, after a gap of three years. The character of the charming streetscape was being erased to make way for gentrification of the ugliest kind, sans any thought or realisation of its original streetscape, a place that exuded a charm of its own, with villas and bungalows, ever since I was a kid who would attend mass at St John the Baptist church and later, to visit homes of college friends who lived in this cosmopolitan cluster.

In that chat with Captain Babu, he rued the current state of Matharpacady, where few original sites remained as many ended up selling their charming homes. Another friend who lives near Khotachiwadi, shudders every time he steps into the locality, lest he spots another eyesore drawing even closer for the kill inside this historic residential cluster.

Each time I’ve spoken with the city’s respected historians, they echo the same concern: The need to document the uncharted areas so there is recorded history of some kind for posterity. Considering the rapidity with which development is taking over the city with very little to stand in the way of guidelines, it is imperative that young chroniclers and researchers from the city take it upon themselves to embark upon this task with dedication, gusto and in good speed.

Each time I pass by the monstrosity that is slowly reaching for the sky on the same spot where I watched Chaplin’s The Great Dictator and Raj Sippy’s Satte Pe Satta, I feel a lump in my throat. Deep Mandir—the single screen cinema that gave me and so many fellow suburbanites such joy is now a part of our past. Alas, this is the inevitability, the future of this great city. What might happen to so much of our rich history is anyone’s guess. How and in what manner we can choose to save it, or at least, record its existence, depends on these young minds whose hearts beat for this city. Hopefully, some of them are reading this column.  

mid-day’s Features Editor Fiona Fernandez relishes the city’s sights, sounds, smells and stones...wherever the ink and the inclination takes her. She tweets @bombayana

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