The Times of India, January 25, 2001
A space mission for Mumbai
By Salil Tripathi
MUMBAI: When I stepped out of Moorgate Station in London and walked towards
Liverpool Street, I had to pass through Finsbury Circus. London is so vast
that there are large parts whose existence catches you by surprise, unless
you make an effort. That January morning, with the air crisp and the sky
a merciful shade of clear blue, a wave of nostalgia hit me as I entered orderly
Finsbury Circus.
There were four buildings around me, all forming a neat arc, like disciplined
schoolchildren. The pillars holding up the solid buildings bore the faces
of dead Greek men and women, and that image, as well as the quiet, manicured
lawns of the park in the middle of the busy city transported me instantly
to Horniman Circle and Ballard Pier in Bombay. For when I lived there, it
was still a cosmopolitan Bombay and hadn't retreated to the narrower identity
of Mumbai.
There were, however, some noticeable differences at Finsbury Park--it was
not crowded, it was clean, the buildings were not plastered with slogans
or posters and in the covered footpath between the pillars and the buildings,
hawkers had not taken over every available inch of space.
I should have kept walking. I was getting late for a conference at the Great
Eastern Hotel. But the public space--the park--in the middle of the city
had such a soothing influence that I sat down on a bench, half-imagining
the imposing steps of the Asiatic Society in front of me. I hope it is still
called that, and not renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maha Pustakalaya.
I sat sipping coffee, thinking back to what had become of Horniman Circle
before the private sector rescued it. From being a haven of tranquillity,
it had degenerated into a paradise for lost souls on a trip to nowhere. When
the complaints grew, the authorities responded in the way they knew best--they
banished the seekers of that parallel universe and locked the gates, thus
robbing the public of an opportunity to be alone in a crowded place, which
is, of course, the USP of open spaces.
In the last few years, Horniman Circle has been gentrified, what with numerous
poetry readings and experimental plays. All to the good. But what's getting
impossible is to find that spot of individual space without being intruded
upon by a peanut seller (Nariman Point), yuppies discussing share prices
(Hanging Gardens), noisy collegians ogling at lithe girls in track suits
(the Race Course), or matchmakers conducting complicated negotiations for
prospective marriages (Priyadarshini Park).
Those parks were meant to allow you a degree of anonymity--being alone in
a crowd, lost in one's private universe, untroubled by the surroundings,
din and chaos. Big cities are meant to offer that individual space which
allows one to live one's life the way one wants to, away from the gaze of
neighbours, relatives and colleagues. Manhattan, with which Mumbai likes
to compare itself the most, still has its Central Park.
But in the last decade, just as people are crowding to occupy every square
inch of the city's terra firma, something else has happened. Most people
once enjoyed a degree of autonomy over their lives which enabled them to
retain their individuality, but that seems to be vanishing. Conformity seems
to have stepped in. There is no escape. You can't go to a park today and
be yourself, even momentarily.
It is only going to get worse. In another 20 years, the city's population
will be mind-bogglingly big. Twenty-seven million people is one estimate,
says my friend Suketu Mehta, who is writing a book about Bombay. That's almost
one-and-a-half times the population of Australia. Will there be any open
spaces left when the city has 27 million people? And will that kind of crowd
allow anonymity or force conformity? I'd prefer the former, but fear that
it will be otherwise. The inexorable pressure of people will push city planners
into swallowing up every available inch of land.
Open spaces are important not only because they make good postcards, but
also because they make the city attractive to the bright and the young from
elsewhere. Without that infusion of energy, the city will have lost its meaning,
because it is that verve, that buzz, that powers the engine which has made
Mumbai the Urbs Prima in Indes. Take away that allure, and the city stands
diminished.