Water Fountain near Museum, Mumbai

Fountain near Museum, Mumbai

I noticed this fountain came alive after decades. Perhaps, this season there is good rain, and the citizens are assured that they would get water to drink till next monsoon, which has been erratic for some time.

A Relic from British Raj, updated with car park, landscape, fence etc. Aesthetics of Visual Hedonism. It may suit in cold regions! In tropical India, people have integrated large water bodies in city centres like this.

Water reservoir in the traditional city centre: Sur Sagar, Vadodara

 Read MORE >> Water Parks in Wanting

While Mumbai has been facing recurring floods, or droughts.

Floods in Mumbai is a recurring feature

 Read MORE >> Floods in Mumbai - DELUGE 26/7/2005 MUMBAI: A Tip of the Iceberg

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© Remigius de Souza. All rights reserved.

Street Artist in Mumbai

Life and Survival in Mumbai 

Street Artist in Mumbai

He is deaf, mute and disabled. He is literate in Marathi, conveys in brief writing and in gestures.

The street is his canvas, a chalk his medium. He paints murals appropriate to scale of street, always in seating posture, obviously.
His street art also falls in the category of ancient ritual as Land Art of Rangoli / Alpana / Kolam practice by Indian women householders.

Life and Survival in Mumbai

 
Ganesha is his Idol and subject, appears in various attires of great people. Here Shivaji personified as Ganesha. This, of course, is in tune with culture in Maharashtra.

He has tremendous ‘sense of scale’ and ‘economy of means’, which even the most learned & the highly placed elite – politicians, experts, professionals etc. – may miss in their work & lifestyle.

I cannot guess his age; it seems he has arrested aging by constructive creativity.

Some benevolent institution may have given him a carriage for conveyance. There his rehabilitation comes to an end.

He shows me his album, many photographs of his paintings, and newspaper cuttings: he is a celebrity in his own right.

Indeed for many well known artists, honorarium amount they receive is never enough; whatever this person receives is never less. Government supports authors and other artists, however, this street artist may not appear in their lists; there many, too many, like him in India.

The Artist, his Land Art and Belongings in Mumbai

 
While parting, I simply salute him.
--
Life is larger than all Arts, Sciences, Religions, Philosophies, trade, techs, States ... through times and places. ― Remigius de Souza

21/02/2013

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© Remigius de Souza. All rights reserved.

 LEARNING AIDS IN BOOKS!

Survival and Life in Mumbai – Daily Bread

Image-1

Squatter Mother, Child and Hearth

 Two generations have born and grew up in Mumbai in such subhuman conditions. But no one knows how to give them fair deal as citizens of this great nation - India

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Mother and Father: Marathi proverb modified

In Mumbai about 60% persons live in "Grey Land Use Zone", which is illegal or unrecognized. They are landless, homeless, displaced and marginalized in their motherland. The elite are chasing them away everywhere.

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Survival and Life in City: Mother's Little Helpers

Precious childhood learns life-supporting skills in the nursery school of Life itself: there is no better teacher anywhere. What memories would they carry as they grow-up? Who knows? They may not have been entered even the Census Survey of India. 

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Mother Nature!, Give us this day our honest bread!

The marginalized and displaced have no demands even for their needs

from anyone.

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Learning aids - 1

This hawker on street has her kin and clan and close-knit community scattered in city: They don't suffer Identity crisis, though homeless in their Motherland.

"यही मुंबै मेरी जान ।"
This Mumbai My Love!

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Street vendor in Mumbai

This street vender, though s/he may be illiterate, but knows well:

• about 'survival' (means 'to live sanely') better than 'Authority';
• about what things sell in this metropolis;
• about life that teaches lessons in the country-wide-classroom;
• about authority that is a faceless entity;
• about glossy paper books that fail to teach lessons in Real Life, Down to Earth;
• about the pampered kids pushed to live in the Virtual Reality, day in and day out;
• And about how to save to her portable shop, from the baton...

Image-7

Street vendor in Mumbai

There are many dimensions to this frugal figure acquired through the glorious past, an Epic Poem in Person.

The elders in elite society hardly have time to take their kids to nearby places to look at vegetable and fish market, grocery shop, gardens and parks - though a very few, paddy farms on the outskirts of the city/suburbs or town, which offer innumerable variety in every aspect described in these glossy books, and much more.

Poor pampered elite kids! Despite affluence they don’t have grandparents who could help, nearby.

Children have countless curiosities — questions, keen observation with all their senses, above all, their spontaneity and innocence!
But before long, before they see, experience and understand the real world around them, not even their immediate neighbourhood, they are pushed into Virtual Reality: Ready canned food, drinks, spices, views in TV, cell phone, MP3, Info-Technology.
At a tender age of 2-3, they are admitted into a public domain called 'nursery school', when they are not even introduced to their kin and clan: So they become 'smart' guys 'n gals.
This is rubbing salt on the wounded cohesive collective by the demise of joint family.

• Can a school impart social values and life-supporting skills, which kinship and community could inculcate without a paid lecturer?
• Could the Industry & Trade remove this social lack of values and morality?
• Can a physicist and an economist sitting on high chairs at the helm of country's affairs provide answer with rockets and global market economy?

∴ The elders, each one, should try to find the answers.
(08-01-2013)

Life is larger than all Arts, Sciences, Religions, Philosophies, trade, technologies, States... through times and places, — Remigius de Souza

Remi's other blogs:

ARCHETYPES INDIA  | BEEHIVE IN GONDWANA | Remichi Marathi Boli

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© Remigius de Souza. All rights reserved.

Resting on Winter Morning in Mumbai

Life and Survival in Mumbai

Resting on Winter Morning in Mumbai

No tension! No insurance!

 More than 60% people in Mumbai are slum dwellers and squatters. Many of them are daily wagers. Whenever there "Bandh" — "close-down" in Mumbai, they may not get even water, not only food. 

He, perhaps, is compensating his sleepless night in the morning sun during this winter.

The Planners, Policy makers, perhaps can't help them because there is no provision in the prevailing acts and laws, or perhaps  they are not aware of both.

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© Remigius de Souza. All rights reserved.

OLD CITY SEWER VENT PIPES, MUMBAI

 Relics of British Raj in Bombay

1. Old City Sewer Vent pipe, Mumbai

Very few of these cast iron vent pipes fixed to the sewer drains are left in Mumbai's island city. These vent pipes; about five of them are on Dada Saheb Phalke Marg.

Their height indicates Bombay's city scale then. Now Mumbai is aiming for sky, with glass-clad skyscrapers.

2. Old City Sewer Vent pipe, Mumbai

It is heartening to see people paddling bicycles even today. Banyan trees also add to the city's past. Now the defunct Gold Mohor Mill is on the breaking point. It will be taken over perhaps by new commercial buildings, sooner or later.

The cast iron vent pipes were imported from Britain about two hundred years ago. Of course, from pin to power-loom, most machine-made items ware once imported.

Every piece assembled in this pipe has the maker's name, “CEO. GAHAGAN & CO. LTD.”, placed (See Fig.5). In those days there was no need of mentioning 'Made in Britain'.

3. Old City Sewer Vent pipe, Mumbai

Britain had once invaded 90% countries of the world. Now we may change the names of places, remove statues, repeal acts, but the list is endless. How can we remove deep impressions on our psyche — particularly the elite groomed by British-made education?

City services, such as water supply, drainage etc. should generally last for 200 to 300 years, while those for houses last for 30 to 40 years. This calls for repairs and replacements.

However, the Urban Explosion has been taking place at unprecedented rate, which is worldwide phenomenon, not only in India. It is a gift of Industrialization.

 

4. Detail-1,  Old city sewer vent pipe, Mumbai

The drainage, water supply systems have been under pressure, and are replaced. Obviously these sewer vents have been long defunct.

The citizens should generally be aware of such issues, irrespective of politics of power and patriotism in polarization.

It is not only water supply and drainage but there are many other vital public services: health, education, post and telegraph, gas, electricity, transport...open spaces and, of course, spaces for the cultural needs of the people, especially in the Pluralistic Indian Society.

4. Detail-2, Old city sewer vent pipe, Mumbai

In the democratic society, the duty to bring this awareness among the people falls on the shoulders of media — radio, TV, newspapers... or multimedia, as non-formal education; besides all the levels and streams of the mass education — public or private. Entertainment is trivial aspect of living, not vital issue, but unduly exaggerated by the entertainment industry.
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© Remigius de Souza. All rights reserved.

Knife-grinder at Mumbai’s Bazaar

 Third World India Technology

Knife-grinder in Mumbai

This is an advancement from hand operated emery wheel carried on shoulder to one fixed to bicycle paddle. Knives made of iron are still popular here than made of stainless steel.

India once excelled in iron industry (!) around 200 BC that produced rust-proof iron.

Read a story: Parable of 20th Century Blacksmith of Bhal

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© Remigius de Souza. All rights reserved.

My Home My Heart (painted poem)

With money you can buy houses,

but money cannot by for you a home.

Image and Poem by Remigius de Souza

House is where the Home is;
Home is where the Heart is.

Squatters in Mumbai: Displaced and Marginalized

(Image: Shelter for the bus passengers / Shelter for the Displaced in Mumbai: Contradiction in Mumbai's Urban Design.
Bus shelter is built in stainless steel: a sexy designer product!
Both together symbolize India's Development Planning, and exposes its hypocrisy.)
 

Whenever I walk down-to-earth in Mumbai I notice 65 million people live in the slums and squatters, struggle for their daily bread.
It is their Daily Prayer in Action to Life. They aren't activist like the elite; they are vacationist without duplicity, and without words.

It seems their number is daily rising defying the official statistics:
Just like the rising national GDP of India;
just like rising Stock Exchange indexes in the money market;
just like rising numbers of skyscrapers rising higher and higher on Mumbai's skyline;
just like rising number of vacant blocks of houses awaiting higher returns of their investments.
It seems all these have lost their heart and home, both, in the money market, though the squatters on the street-side!

The reason to notice them is simple: Once I practiced as architect-planner; once I was a teacher; once I was landless teen age farm labourer; once I too was a displaced and marginalized person. Only I had opportunity for formal education in time.
All these people have come from many regions of India. They come from the places wherever Mumbai has left its footprint. The rulers of India must not ignore this fact. The capitalist – Indian and foreigners – who have settled in Mumbai are capable enough to buy over all of them, but where they can get educated slaves why should they care?
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NOTE: Recent news "2.25 million homes empty, people still homeless in state" Mumbai, Hindustan Times, September 23, 2012 Page 1. 
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© Remigius de Souza. All rights reserved.

Narali – Coconut – Punam festival day

Narali – Coconut – Punam festival day

Koli – fisher folks – worship their boats on Coconut Day, which falls on 1st and 2nd of August this year. Koli send their boats to sea, and start fishing on this day.

During the monsoon, the Koli are busy mending their nets, making new ones,
Repair and paint their country crafts. They moor their boats on sandy shores, covered with leaves of coconut palms, and cultivate vegetables on monsoon rains.

 

They are one of the original residents of the islands of Mumbai.

The British, and the following governments, bulldozed the pristine creeks, hills and the sea, with increasing pressures of development economics.

These pressures pushed the Koli communities of Mumbai to the brink, to “THE LAND’S END”.

Whenever I recall this map, an emotional tsunami erupts, my blood boils. I'm still a Konkani village brat.

What extraordinary place this land must have been then, with creeks, hills, tropical greenery and the nesting villages with sweet water wells and lakes, before the Portuguese landed here!

They attacked Mahim Fort, won the battle, and their soldiers walks on the streets of Mahim village, killed innocent villagers just to intimidated them. On their heels came Missionaries to spread the Good News, Gospel of Love !!

All the splendor Mumbai's nature was later bulldozed by the British bunya, forever!

King is dead. Long live the king!

NOTE: While editing this post, I receive email from Nat Geo about World's Best Surf Towns with photos. A notable city is Venice with canals; it is said Venice is literally floating on sea water and is in danger of sinking. We may compare Mumbai before 1670 had it continued with same land mass for its organic growth with Venice.

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© Remigius de Souza. All rights reserved.