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A H I N D U G R O U P P R E S E N T A T I O N
2
From nagar to metropolis
throwaway economy; the physical apparatus of the
Ranjit Hoskot industrial economy, its mill-flues and assembly-lines, are
substituted with the plasma touch-screens and con-
F cities could be spoken of as personalities, most of soles of the virtual economy; the sociable exchanges of
3 tural signs; the recycling economy collides with the scape to a makeover while ignoring the harsh realities
5 cynicism that seeps into the soul as you negotiate rain- edly, in the chase sequence, the fight sequence, the
O
VER the last three decades, urbanisation has
shown unprecedented rates of growth, devastat-
ing the physical form of our cities which have
been unable to deal with the swelling numbers. While
this compression of people in a limited space symbolis-
es optimism and is characterised by many positive
attributes, it has spelt doom for the urban form of our
cities.
In a city, the pieces are essential to the well-being of
the whole. How these pieces are put together and their
relation to one another, is what is particular about the
design of a city. It is for this reason that a city is often
described as a machine - the little parts adding up to
create the grand design. In contemporary India there is
little logic that determines these relationships in a city,
from the overall plan or structure of the city, to its inte-
gral components, physical as well as social infrastruc-
ture, buildings, open spaces, streets, signage and
street furniture. How these are administratered or Unfortunately, in India today, architecture is no longer
orchestrated to work as a unified whole - greater than seriously considered by planners as an instrument for
the sum of the parts - is what makes appropriate and the structuring of the urban landscape. This has partly
relevant urban design. to do with the attitude of architects who have not
Large-scale architecture in cities is usually site-spe- engaged sufficiently to influence city policy, which in
cific, bound by client intentions and restricted (more turn implicitly determines what they can build. In fact,
often than not) to superficial styling. Planning (in the architects have almost no “policy sense” and this is
sense of master plans) has rarely even attempted to perhaps endemic of a larger cultural problem in India
represent issues pertaining to the physical form of where there is a slightly non-empirical bent of mind. As
cities. It is precisely to fill this lacuna that the discipline a result of this, far greater premium is paid to symbolic
of urban design should be considered, bridging the void action - represented often as policy decisions endorsed
between architecture and the larger concerns of cohe- and legitimised by politicians. In V. S. Naipaul’s book An
siveness and legibility of the overall urban form. The Area of Darkness, he touches upon symbolic action
precise goals of urban design should be the creation when he describes the sweeper who sweeps the corri-
and maintenance of those parts of the public realm that dor in his hotel and at the end of the day, it is dirtier than
7 are crucial to the collective urban memory. when he started sweeping. A symbolic action whose
S
INCE the 1990s, there has been a thrust in India’s ple of decades later, with the rail bridge alongside it,
transport sector towards increasing reliance on that Navi Mumbai got the boost it badly needed.
private investment. This can take many forms: pri- However, the central business district (CBD) in the
vate entrepreneurs constructing roads and bridges, new city has not really taken off, because manage-
often on a “build, operate and transfer” basis, the entry ments have been reluctant to shift across the harbour,
of many more multinational car manufacturers, and the given the inadequate transport links. Although the
easing of restrictions in the imports of components. Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority
Throughout urban India, which now accounts for some (MMRDA) has been developing the Bandra-Kurla area
300 million people, the perception that the State is as an alternative CBD within Greater Mumbai, it is tak-
unwilling or unable to provide quick and reliable trans- ing some time to grow into a full-fledged centre. While
port is fast gaining ground. There is increasing depend- areas in the suburbs like Andheri are attracting some
ence on private modes of motorised transport, whether new sunrise service industries, South Mumbai retains
it is automobiles, two-wheelers or buses. its overwhelming importance.
Middle-class citizens aspire to owning or using these While successive State governments have been
vehicles and believe that the State’s responsibility is to guilty of neglecting Mumbai’s transport problems, it was
provide the infrastructure for this purpose. This has led the erstwhile Shiv Sena-BJP government which drasti-
to a situation where private modes are swallowing the cally altered the course. By initiating a range of road
bulk of funds earmarked
for transport in cities and
towns. Nowhere is this
stark contrast more appar-
ent than in Mumbai, the
country’s commercial and
industrial capital. There
has been heavy invest-
ment in a plethora of road-
ways and a near-total neg-
lect of public transport in a
metropolis where the
overwhelming majority rely
on this mode to commute
to work.
Mumbai’s peculiar geog-
raphy has admittedly com-
plicated the situation. The
north-south transport axis
has been part of the city’s
life for so many decades
that it is difficult to think of
changing it. The entire
concept of building a twin
city across the harbour in
the early 1970s was
meant to provide an east-
11 were an underground system. would help reduce air pollution. Maharashtra’s Minister
I
T is New Year’s eve in New York City. Y2K is about Canal Street looms close, the music on the stereo
to begin. And I am sweeping my eyes over the lights surges. As if on cue, Annie Lennox begins to sing
of Manhattan as I make my quick exit out of the city. “Downtown Lights”.
On the car stereo, Annie Lennox is singing “No More I Earlier in the evening, I was at New York City’s Times
Love Yous”. There is very little traffic on Brooklyn Square. It was still a few hours before the giant ball was
Bridge as the car crosses the river. to drop down on the last millennium, accompanied by
I turn and look at my wife, Mona, who always tells me the chanting of a record crowd gathered to mark the
that she finds the view of the Manhattan skyline splen- countdown to the final seconds of the passing era.
didly enticing. Her eyes glisten. It is as if the Statue of Electronic boards everywhere flashed the millennium
Liberty, far away to our left, were actually using the glit- countdown. Every person on the already crowded
tering lights to signal a secret message: “This is home streets was made aware of the passing of time in its
for all you desis. New York is where you come when smallest readable portions.
you are done with New Delhi.” When I dived back into the 42nd Street subway sta-
In that message lies the gospel according to the expa- tion under Times Square, I saw the tight bunches of
triate middle-class to which I firmly belong. None of the blue-clad NYPD policemen. On the Times Square shut-
direness and the desperation of the well-known address tle, there was an announcement on the train’s wall. It
to the hungry, the tired, and the poor - which the Statue read: “Every 12 seconds another woman is beaten by
of Liberty has actually been morse-coding across the her husband or boyfriend.” This declaration of time
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passing made time stop for me. and, by an odd chance, we had happened to choose
There were photos of battered women above the this night for her move to Florida to the house where I
announcement; none of them looked Indian, but I know had been living for some time. In our household, I am
that South Asian women’s groups like Sakhi in New not allowed to say anything bad about the city. If I do,
York are active because there is a high occurrence of Mona reminds me gently that it is the city in which we
domestic abuse in our communities. Desi men, met. Mona came to New York City from Karachi; I came
unmoored from their familiar place, in all senses of the there from Patna via New Delhi.
word, hurt those who are closest to them and who are When I think of what happened between Mona and
often utterly dependent on them for support. me, I am also reminded of something else. The writer
There are other groups too - like Workers Awaaz and Suketu Mehta, who has his roots in Mumbai and who
Taxi Drivers Coalition - that fight for the immigrant rights now lives in the same neighbourhood in Brooklyn where
of South Asians in New York City. The city that I was Mona once lived, is a friend of mine. In an article called
leaving that last evening of the last millennium was a “The Fatal Love”, Suketu had written: “The first time I
city where, at street level, in a world distant from the met the enemy people, Pakistanis, was when I went to
lights of the soaring skyscrapers, are the struggles of New York. We shopped together, we ate together, we
working people from places like Ludhiana and Lahore. dated each other and had each others’ babies.” ●
By ten or eleven, I was speeding on the New Jersey
Turnpike, listening intently to the news on the car-radio. The writer is an academic based in the U.S. and the author of Passport
The news that was being repeated was about the Photos (Penguin India, 2000). He writes a literary column for tehelka.com.
release of the passengers on the hijacked Indian
Airlines flight. It was only when I heard that happy news
that it struck me that the new year had already arrived
in India.
The next day, Mona and I would stop at a gas-station
and buy the newspapers, the first newspapers of a new
era. The news of the end of the hijacking drama would
find space on the front pages of the New York Times. I
bought other newspapers, trying to get as much news
as I could about the exchange of prisoners for the Indian
Airlines passengers at an airport in Afghanistan. While
skimming over the Washington Post, I stumbled across
the photograph of an Indian woman. The face that had
caught my eye was of a woman who was one among a
hundred readers of the Post who had written a hundred
words about themselves.
This is what face number 33 had to say about herself:
“My name is Sushma Sondhi, of Sterling. I am from
India. We came to America with a dream to give our
boys the best life. We sacrificed our settled life in our
home country for our boys. One son, 19, met a much
older woman who has two children from two different
fathers. We asked him to complete his education
before getting involved. He said, ‘Go to hell. Stop call-
ing me.’ There is no bigger sorrow than to hear these
words from your loved ones.”
When midnight came, we had left the highway to find
shelter for the night. There was the live broadcast from
New York on the television where we had stopped.
People packed into Times Square looked happy and
excited as the countdown began. Champagne bottles
were being uncorked.
14 Mona had lived in New York City for several years
F
OR years the word “Peshwa” was synonymous the core. Migrants form a fourth and atmospheric layer
with Pune, or Poona, as the British called it. The that gives the city a kind of buoyancy: they have come
association still persists to a degree. The here from virtually every corner of India; they have
Peshwas, after all, ruled Maharashtra from Pune for changed Pune’s face and vitalised it.
more than a century until 1818. The raison detre of a Marathi may be the city’s mother tongue, but it is the
town or city can be traced migrants’ ethnic mix - Parsis,
to its origins. Pune’s histo- Christians, Jews, Muslims,
ry supposedly begins with Gujaratis, South Indians,
the Bhonsles, Shivaji’s fam- Bengalis, Punjabis, Sindhis
ily - the Peshwas followed and rural folk from the Hindi
on their heels, and finally belt, to name just some of
the British made their mark the groups - that has
and remained there until enriched the city beyond
1947. During the latter measure, giving it a warmth
period, progressive reform- and vibrancy, even a certain
ers like Phule, Agarkar, cosmopolitan feel. These
Gokhale and Karve shaped diverse communities have
Pune’s distinctive social thrown up a riotous variety
ethos. Each dominant class we can all celebrate. Their
added its own layer to the social worlds, colliding and
city’s history and what we intersecting, each different
get is a palimpsest: nothing from the other, give Pune its
is completely erased; rem- colourful character.
nants of the old are still vis- Each community has
ible. merged with the others until
Pune has forged ahead, their tentacles have spread
its original raison detre and reached into every avail-
metamorphosing into a able piece of land that could
host of raison detre: the conceivably be settled. And
defence establishments of so Pune often seems like an
the Southern Command, overgrown village; it still
laboratories and scientific retains an old-world sort of
research institutes, hospi- charm, beating to a gentler
tals, colleges and a major university, computer training rhythm. Despite this, and despite some indolent ways it
schools and cyber cafes, technical vocational institutes, has inherited, Pune is on the whole a reasonably disci-
art schools and cultural organisations, theatres, muse- plined and industrious city. It is undoubtedly on the
ums, booksellers, publishers, printing presses, heavy move, ready to join the global village. Software firms,
industries, a stock exchange, national and international computer vendors, computer institutes and net cafes
banks, head offices of domestic and multinational com- have mushroomed, and generally set the mood and
panies, hotels, restaurants and boarding houses, a red- tone of the city.
light district. The list goes on. They seem eager to equip Pune for the 21st Century.
15 If Pune is viewed as a microcosm of planet earth, the This is the cyber-veneer Pune has recently acquired.
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© Kasturi And Sons Ltd
part of the city, find vegetables and fruits at convenient option exists. On the contrary, the organised sector is
locations, find cheaper, yet reliable, alternatives for all diligently shedding its work force, forcing these men to
the famous brand names sold in the Indian market. turn to the informal sector.
In every nook and corner of the majority of Mumbai’s And this in turn is leading to a cascade effect, as each
slums there is “industry.” The lane between rows of wave of workers displaced by the organised sector, dis-
houses, the tiny lofts, any open space between struc- places workers in the informal sector.
tures, even disused toilet blocks are locations of tiny The entry of more workers also pushes down wages
manufacturing centres, producing readymade clothes, even lower than they already are. A labour surplus mar-
food stuffs, leather bags, suitcases, jewellery, soap, ket is a dream for the entrepreneur in the unorganised
just about anything. sector. And a nightmare for the workers looking for a
Surabhi Sharma’s recent film “Jari Mari and Other living wage.
Tales of Cloth” captures most vividly these islands of Yet, even this cannot last as the city’s focus shifts
intense enterprise. The location of her film is a slum that from manufacturing to the service sector. Mumbai-
hugs the runway of Mumbai airport. For over three based architect Arvind Adarkar predicts that 50 to 60
decades people have lived there, their daily lives punc- lakh workers in the city will be pushed from the indus-
tuated by landings and take-offs. But the inhabitants of trial to the self-employed sector in the next few years.
Jari Mari have not taken off. They cling precariously to Until 1971, just under half the city’s workforce was
their uncertain territory, waiting for a day when the bull- engaged in manufacturing. By 1990, this had declined
dozers will move in and flatten more than three decades to a little over 28 per cent.
of toil and savings. But this uncertain existence has not So, what of the future? The chimneys of Girangaon at
dampened their enterprise. Jari Mari resounds day and least survived to tell their tale. One wonders what sym-
night with the sound of sewing machines and other bols will remain from this vanishing, and virtually invisi-
instruments that produce all manner of goods. ble informal sector, that has sustained so many lives. ●
Dharavi, a few kilometres south, is Jari Mari on a
much larger scale. Here there are large organised units,
some employing more than 20 workers. They process
leather, make finished leather goods, produce ready-
made garments for the export market and for domestic
sale. In one factory, workers from different parts of
India make the special sweet from their region. These
are then packed and despatched to places where a
Dharavi cannot even be imagined.
And the women? Their hands are not still for a
moment. When they are not filling water, or cleaning
and cooking, they are busy working with their hands -
embroidery, making rakhis, making paper bags. Others
go and work in the recycling district sorting out plastic.
But while this informal industry might provide colour
and interest to writers and photographers, it represents
a drastic decline of livelihood choices for the millions of
poor people who have made Mumbai their home. By its
very nature, the informal sector breeds insecurity. It
survives because it can work with the smallest of mar-
gins. This means that workers get paid less than the
minimum wage. But they are in no position to question
or argue. There are no unions. And there are hundreds
waiting to take up these jobs at even lower salaries. So
workers, drawn from many parts of India, toil silently in
these sweatshops, and wait for their chance to move
on to something better.
In the past, that “something better” would have been
19 a secure job in the organised sector. Today, no such
T
HIS urban conglomeration we call home, is also well. He showed us snake tracks in an unused garage.
the home to a diverse selection of fauna, some like He said they were made a few days ago and were viper
the snake we never imagined was here. In tracks. Elsewhere a portion of a rain water pipe lay on
Chennai, and in other cities, we have unwittingly pro- the ground, mud had collected in it. Murugan bent down
vided niches of safety for creatures that have adapted and we saw in the beam of a flashlight a snake track a
to urban life. It is not only the migrant birds that come few inches wide. He said that pipe was the regular hid-
annually to the Adyar estuary, nor the occasional visitor, ing place of a large cobra. Here in the middle of an
like the monkey, which troops in from villages, the city urban city, a cobra? He laughed, “Snakes travel long
has a plethora of creatures, which choose to live here. distances all over the city and go hunting in the night.
Amidst the tall buildings, the traffic, the urban garbage You are lucky there are no snakes here, but keep the
dumps, sewer lines and storm water drains, animal life downstairs windows closed at night.”
survives, in fact thrives. It is a city within a city, the If snakes live in the city, can mongoose be far behind?
secret life of the urban wildlife. There is a family of mongoose in my garden. They hunt
Last year in the empty plot next door, workmen clear- in our neighbourhood, but live in the storm water drains
ing the undergrowth ferreted out three snakes. There and underground burrows. The storm water drains,
20 was general panic and a snake catcher was sent for; which are dry for most of the year, are a great place for
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became the pervasive type.These brought about major and guidelines could do anything about these buildings
changes in property ownership and occupational pat- that are integrated with local histories and craftsman-
terns. The Namboodiris and Nairs, not used to farming ship, that are of immense heritage value to the region.
by themselves and also due to intra family dynamics, There are rules that gives provision to the local bod-
sold their properties to others. The Land Revenue Act ies, to document and preserve the important heritage
introduced by the communist goverment regularised buildings within their jurisdiction. If the local bodies or
the land for cultivators. That marked the end of the feu- the politically powerful Nair service societies,or at least
dal system in Kerala. the respective families of these tharawads do not take
The social change in Kerala was dramatic with politi- the initiative to preserve and reuse appropriately, all of
cal upsurges, accessibility to services due to the close- these would vanish as pieces to entertain tourists. ●
ly distributed settlement centres and ribbon develop-
ment, modern reformers and movements. People
migrated in search of better opportunities. According to The writer is an architect, Urban designer, Founder Member, Centre for
a recent census, at the state level there are 3.75 million Environment, Architecture and Human settlements based in Kozhikode.
migrants - nearly 40 per cent of households have
migrants. Around 1.5 million Keralites live outside India
with 95 per cent in the Gulf countries. The total remit-
tance according to a 1995 data is 10 per cent of the
state domestic product. Kerala was getting integrated References:
to a global system. Property prices were rising. The
agricultural sector declined. Kerala now does not even 1. Urban Process in Kerala, T. T. Sreekumar
produce 50 per cent of its rice needs. People sold agri-
cultural lands for money. The new middle class with 2. Marriage and the Family in Kerala, Fr. J .
more purchasing power powered by Gulf money turned Puthenkulam
bidders. The physical and cultural topography of Kerala
was changing, with new consumption practices and 3. C.D.S. working paper by K.C. Zakariah, E.T.
value systems. Mathew
The old tharawad houses and such traditional build-
ings found no place in the new middle class aesthetics 4. Impact of Migration on Kerala’s Economy and
and demand. Some of the traditional buildings like Society, S. Hrudayarajan
prominent monuments, kovilakoms and temples were
looked after by Dewaswom Boards, trusts, archaeolo-
gy departments and governments. The Nair tharawads
were distributed widely. Owners of these tharawads
had increased manifold by this time and were dispersed
in different parts of the world. The demand for wood-
work, especially the carved components in international
and national markets, the financial and physical burden
of maintaining them, the value of the prime land on
which these buildings stood, were factors that encour-
aged the owners to sell their property. The present
developments in the tourism sector which attempts to
create a “Kerala ambience” at any cost has probably
been the most damaging. These groups with their
transplantation architects and antique dealers brought
out the tharawads from even the interiors of the region
in bulk and reused its components - like columns,
doors, doorframes, rafters and wall plates to create the
“Kerala” ambience in resorts.
Neither the recent Vastu consciousness, the propo-
nents and guardians of traditional architecture, nor the
24 government with their defunct heritage commissions
A
S is the case with the evolution of most artistic the performer wearing the designer mask, it moves into
disciplines in India, Hindu mythology provided the the second dimension, an area inhabited by mythologi-
ignition point for Indian cinema. Dadasaheb cal performers like N. T. Rama Rao and M. G.
Phalke, that pioneer of camerawork, editing, set design, Ramachandran. You can no longer tell the man from the
direction and production, set the ball rolling. mask.
Mythological cinema is the most demanding on set Architecture is expressionism. The Mayas, the
design and special effects. The most populist of audi- Pharaohs of Egypt, the Mughals and the British in India
ences has to be convinced that Lord Krishna has left their vision of themselves in their architecture:
appeared in human form, yet retains his celestial aura where they came from, their perception of the universe
and can appear and disappear at will. In films like “Raja and their place in it. The same thing applies to cinema
Harishchandra” (1914) and “Shri Krishna Janma” and particularly to film with a strong ideological content.
(1919), Phalke maintained his magic touch and can In Bengal, Ritwik Ghatak made the cinema of cultural
rightly be called the first architect of Indian cinema. resistance; resistance to practically everything that was
Phalke drew on the visual record of mythology for his not indigenous to his society. He shows a fractured uni-
images - illustrated texts of the Mahabharata and the verse in his films, his uneven filmography truly graphic.
Ramayana, temple sculpture, engravings on walls and Dismembered by the Bengal famine of 1943 and
common structures, the emerging poster art of the time Partition in 1947, a culture cannot cope and starts to
and, of course, theatrical productions from the period. disintegrate. Ghatak expresses this dislocation through
But because it is all motion-picture photography, Phalke his stark landscapes and the barren architecture of
had to have a performer, an actor, to play Krishna. And whatever he places before the camera. This is particu-
it is at this point that architecture gives way to the larly evident in a film like “Meghe Dhaka Tara” (1960).
human dimension - the movie star as God and, some- In “Subarnarekha” (1962), the sequence set on an
abandoned World War II airstrip is sur-
real. It expresses the idea that the
world outside the immediate one of the
film is even more fractured.
At around the same time in Bombay,
Raj Kapoor was collaborating with K. A.
Abbas to produce a cinematic reflec-
tion of Nehruvian socialism in “Awara”
(1951) and “Shree 420” (1956). The
idea in the architecture of these films
was to produce stark contrasts in
urban landscapes in order to identify
the “haves” and the “have nots”, and
to express a sentimental appreciation
for the lives and the values of the poor,
vis-a-vis the corruption of the city’s
wealthy. With his Charlie Chaplin dress
sense accentuating the great divide,
Kapoor clearly indicates where his
heart is. Bombay city becomes the pro-
tagonist in some ways, the palatial
homes of the oppressors beautifully
25 shot by Radhu Karmakar, a Kapoor reg-
27
© Kasturi And Sons Ltd
But what is most shocking about the city is its aver- tant and brilliant journalism, for the people. It changes
age empowered citizen. This citizen is a selfish, unthink- their lives. Everyone appears deluded about the Delhi
ing, self-destructive creature, who cannot think beyond they live in. People in air-conditioned, closed cars think
himself/ herself and does not see how that mode of the city isn’t polluted and their children’s respiratory
being is slowly killing him/ her. Delhi’s problems - pollu- problems do not make them see it either. For them,
tion through vehicles and industry, lack of drinking water Delhi is those cars, their palatial houses and Punj
and electricity, road accidents - affect all its citizens baroque. Journalists think their rounds of political
across class, caste and gender barriers, though it offices is Delhi, yuppies think it is mobile phones and
doubtless affects the poor more. Yet nobody seems to the Mezz. And so on. Delhi is everything and nothing.
care. Delhi has a mushrooming crop of NGOs and yet It’s a DIY city and yet it is out there slowly killing us all.
they appear to be doing nothing about the real problems Living each day in Delhi is an act of survival. Most
under their own noses, which everyone seems to face. importantly, it is an act of survival for the very people
All the feminist NGOs cannot build one shelter for who built it, who continue to build it, who will eventual-
women, all the environmental NGOs cannot see the ly make it the jazzy metro-equipped and globalised hor-
connection between the way workers are treated and ror of the 21st Century. And they will be evicted,
the way the industries that employ them pollute the exposed to hazardous activity, underpaid, overworked
atmosphere. and killed for it. While the empowered citizens will just
A few groups - the People’s Union For Democratic stand and watch like shadow characters in M.
Rights (PUDR) and the Delhi Janwadi Adhikar Manch Mukundan’s short story “Delhi 1981”, where a woman
are examples - do exemplary work in trying to bring is raped in broad daylight and nobody does a thing. The
injustices to the light, fighting for the underprivileged rich will hog the water, electricity and all there is to hog,
who are violated most seriously everyday and have no the poor will suffer, and we will watch. This is the great
one to represent them. But hardly anyone has heard of city of Delhi, which has so wonderfully worked out its
them and their reports have anything but a wide circula- social order. ●
tion. Intellectuals bleat about the Partition in the blood-
less environs of the India Habitat Centre (IHC) and the
India International Centre (IIC), but do not care about The writer is an academic based in New Delhi.
the way workers are driven out of the cities or to their
deaths on a daily basis. We impel the violent engine of
this city and we wonder why it is so violent.
All those traditional arguments about how Delhi is
nobody’s city - about how it is a city of immigrants and,
therefore, nobody cares about it, how it is not really a
city but a concatenation of villages full of the coarse and
gormless nouveaux riches flashing their wealth shame-
lessly, about how there is no concept of cosmopoli-
tanism in Delhi - are fine and may well be true. But what
do this city’s well-placed denizens think? Do they think
at all? What is it about the city space of Delhi (it is called
a metro, it is the capital) that makes its citizens accept
their systematic and slow destruction?
The signboard reads “Basant Friends Welfare
Association heartily welcomes you.”
29 parallel lives of transaction and ritual, ordinary gesture cise movements bespeak a life in which the active and
34
© Kasturi And Sons Ltd
Junagadh memories
never the main door. Tapu was a tribal, handsomely
Minakshi Raja fearsome with an impressive moustache and he sat all
day long, lazily swinging himself with one leg, while the
I
should not have returned to my past, I should not other rested on the swing under a bended knee.
have gone back to Junagadh, the land of my forefa- In the morning he would keep a large pot of wheat
thers, my birth, my first love. And yet, after a 25 year flour beside him and Brahmin mendicants would stop
absence, I turned around and headed back to my 200- by, calling out, “Daya prabhuni,” and Tapu would empty
year-old ancestral home, to rest awhile, or perhaps to a fistful of flour into their proffered bowls, and they
lick my wounds in the relative security of a return to the would say “Swastik” as they rushed on to the next
womb? home that busy morning. I must have been seven on
The plane arrived on time at Keshod airport, where my school holidays once and I was given permission by
the family car had been sent to meet me. As I came my father to sit with Tapu to mete out largesse. My
down the steps the very air seemed different, probably small hand couldn’t grasp a generous amount, I
because I knew I was on home territory once more. In thought, so I scooped out flour with both hands joined
the car, the kilometres together to give to the
went by fast enough pleased recipient. Tapu
until, at last, I recog- was aghast, “You’ll
nised, rising from the ruin your father,” he
mist of distance, the scolded, “if you pour
Girnar hills range; out so much flour to
Junagadh was rising these no-gooders . . .
before my eyes. and your father won’t
Nearer still, crowds, be the nagarsheth any-
new buildings, shops, more.” That frightened
where once there was me a lot and I ran up
nothing. I searched for the stairs in tears to
familiar faces but there my mother who was
was none. I thankfully upstairs in the living
identified Bahuddin area, where she com-
College still standing forted me.
on its spacious grounds. Thank goodness Moti Baug At the top of those stairs was a large chowk which led
had been left untouched by carpetbaggers; closer to to the verandahs, the divankhana, the treasury room
home was the state guest house, once called Rasul-e- and the birth room where I was born, like most of my
Gulzar, where the Viceroy stayed when he came on a siblings and probably those ancestors whose mothers
lion shoot as the honoured guest of the Babi-dynasty had not returned to their maternal homes for the
Nawab of Junagadh. It was re-named Manoranjan after impending births.
the Nawab fled to Pakistan with several of his beloved In the middle of this first-floor chowk was a built-in
dogs. square under which was a pillar that reached the earth
I entered the once-walled town through Shapur through the basement floor. My father enjoyed arrang-
Darwaaza. More crowds, more carpetbaggers. I recog- ing the occasional yagna at home, but the havan fire had
nised nothing until, in the middle of the vegetable mar- to touch the earth, so he had this pillar built so that the
ket arose the white-washed walls of my home, where chowk touched the earth for all intents and purposes.
the massive, carved, teakwood door was open, wel- We lived around the corner from Haveli Galli which
coming me. lead to the Vaishnava haveli, one of seven in India,
At the entrance, there used to be a swing where where the maharaj held daily services. Once a year,
Tapu, our pagi or watchman sat, guarding the open while we holidayed in Junagadh, my father would
door. It was a tradition that the ancestral home was arrange a service to honour my grandfather’s birthday.
35 never closed. Some rooms may have been locked, but The Hindol was my favourite service, at which time the