Last month while in Bombay, my wife and I managed a few times to mix errands with opportunities to walk around South Bombay - mainly in the Churchgate, Fountain, Oval and Colaba areas. What struck me, was her wonder at the magnificence of the architecture all around this place. Most of the buildings are Centuries old, badly maintained, but still beautiful. The High Court Building, the Rajabhai Clock Tower, the Prince of Wales Museum and of course Victoria Terminus, are all grand and awe-inspiring. Even though the streets around them are dirty (filthy would be a better word sometimes), with potholes, open sewers and obstructions, it still is as good a place to walk around in, as it gets in this city. As one radiates out from this area, the contrast in the architecture and layout provides a hint of the glory that was South Bombay.
During this holiday we took a trip to a hill station (Matheran) which is a couple of hours drive from the city. We went there by rail, but decided to return by car. As we drove back, we got to see the expanse of this mega-city coming in from the Northern outskirts. Initially, it was just an unbroken vista of slums next to swamp land, but as you start to pierce the outer skin of the city, the structures start to rise higher. Barring a very few though, most of these are just concrete blocks, punched-in in various places to make way for doors and windows. Most are a uniform grey, as if they have never been painted, and look like the sort of buildings that a child of two would sketch. You feel your eyes skimming around, desperately seeking a single spot of beauty amongst this unrelenting drudgery. The buildings rise up like broken old men, struggling to stand up, and threatening to keel over.
As we came closer into the center of this sprawling metropolis, the chawls start. This is a mass of communal, dormitory style buildings, with shared balconies and toilet facilities - unpainted, un-maintained and with permanent scaffolding to prop them up. They are festooned with masses of clothes hung out to dry, and the pressure of the people crammed within seems to expand the walls of the buildings themselves. These buildings are intertwined by alleys and small roads, every inch of which is occupied by shops, hawkers, pedastrians, dogs and rubbish heaps.The new flyovers speed you through this area, which otherwise would take forever to traverse through.
Even further in, one starts to see the Old Bombay. The skyline is broken by modern(ish) skyscapers, with grilled windows, where everything from childrens bicycles to cooking utensils are stored, to make more space within the apartments. A few decent looking buildings stand out amongst the sprawl of concrete clutter, and these tend to serve even more focus on the urban boxes that surround them.
I saw this city with new eyes this time, and what struck me the most, was the tiredness of the structures. Most buildings are over-populated and badly maintained, and the overarching theme seems to be one of no pride in where a Bombayite resides. It is as if the entire population of this city is transitory, and hence have no vested interest in maintaining their respective residential areas.
Contrasting this with the pre-independance colonial buildings, I could not help but think that Modern India has failed its people. All we have managed to do is build brick and concrete blocks to shelter our people, and renamed structures that we cannot hope to replicate, with names of Indian heroes. I am sure that those same heroes would be ashamed to have the buildings built by their enemies, named after them.
Take for example the old Victoria Terminus or what is now called the Chatrapatti Shivaji Terminus. The original structure (which is a protected building) is awesome, but the extension looks like an old factory or warehouse. The irony is that these old structures were built with slave labour. By Indians under occupation when the British ruled the country. It is almost as if the British knew that they would soon be leaving, and wanted to leave their legacy for future Indian generations to wonder at.
Free India could only match it with cement boxes, huddled together in an unending and decrepit vista of ineptitude. After three centuries of rule, the free men of India could not raise themselves above the level of the hutments they had existed in. And when their eyes did eventually gaze skywards, all they saw was a series of hovels, one stacked on top of another.
We shape our buildings; thereafter our Buildings shape us - Winston Churchill
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