The sprawling IIT campus (see Design Local Conference, below), set in the once-rural far northern suburb of Powai, near to a lake of the same name, is of some intrinsic interest - a well-maintained example of 60s concrèt brut – I’m told it was a showpiece of Pandit Nehru’s visionary investment in Indian tertiary education, the results of which are so evident in India’s growing global IT prowess today. Well-planned quadrangles, walkways and plantings provide pleasant vistas, with frequent water features and sculptural installations. Outside this almost Arcadian setting lie the traffic-choked roads and high-rise towers of the ‘new’ town of Powai – a suburb on steroids, with its Hutch mobile phone shops and gated enclaves sprouting along the lake to accommodate the newly wealthy, while (as always in urban India) the impoverished workers and their families huddle in shanties across the fence. It reminded me of London’s Canary Wharf under construction in the early nineties, without the auto-rickshaws or wandering cows of course. The rather pristine-looking Lake Powai (which forms part of Mumbai’s fresh water supply) while no doubt providing spectacular views from the residential towers, is disappointingly difficult to access, and it proved almost impossible to stroll along the shore. There is no footpath or much evidence of traditional ghats (public bathing areas) – just a traffic-choked and hazardous lakeside road. Given the Indian love of strolling by and bathing in bodies of water, I was surprised by this.
To really see Mumbai-by-the-water, one must travel many kilometres south to Back Bay on the western side of the peninsula that is downtown Mumbai, where Marine Drive curves northward from Nariman Point to the famous Chowpatty Beach. While the ocean is somewhat toxic, the beach and promenade, especially in the cool of evening, brings out thousands of Mumbaikar families, and the big thing to do is eat kulfi and watch the sun dip below the horizon of the Arabian Sea. I had the rather magical experience of watching this from the so-called Hanging Gardens (Kamala Nehru Park) on Malabar Hill. On the eastern side of the peninsula is Colaba and Mumbai’s even more toxic but atmospheric harbour, the maidans (parks) and grandiose colonial buildings of old Bombay, and the arts precinct of Kala Ghoda (Black Horse) which was buzzing in February with the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival. This lively week-long event encompassed numerous exhibitions, sculptural installations, performances, a literary festival, street art markets, information and food stalls. I was also fortunate to catch the last days of a major survey of Indian contemporary art, Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India, at the National Gallery of Modern Art.
Fans of architectural monstrosities should venture further north to the outlandish Victoria Terminus (officially now Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus but know to one and all as ‘VT’). Designed by Frederick William Stevenson and completed in 1888, its provenance has been described as ‘Indo-Saracenic-St Pancras-Gothic-Revival’. North of here begins what Mumbaikars would call the ‘real’ Mumbai – the teeming central bazaars and the vast suburbs stretching north to the airports, Bandra, Film City and the lakes, west to the posh beach suburb of Juhu, and east to the estuarine coast – middle class residential areas cheek-by-jowl with decaying flyovers, Asia’s largest slums, and eternally humming street markets. The buzz of Mumbai is akin to that of New York, give or take the odd elephant in the street, and what is remarkable is that despite the chaotic traffic, the press of people, the melting-pot of culture, language and religion, and the appalling disparities of wealth, this metropolis of 15-odd million remains relatively peaceful and crime-free – certainly compared to western cities of similar size. For all its problems, India manifests an immense humanism, as well as an immense vitality, and in a very real sense all life, no matter how low in the caste system, remains sacrosanct.
A visit to Mumbai will leave you exhausted, but you may well come away with a renewed faith in humanity.
Namaste
No comments:
Post a Comment