Nature Reclaims. Lower Parel, Mumbai.

The history of Mumbai is strewn with unplanned inorganic growth. More than a billion people now inhabits the city, most of them being migrants from all over the country.

With changing face of commerce, government and population, the city’s infrastructure has developed a very unique architecture.

Every neighbourhood and commercial district has a very interesting story. But I doubt if there is any with more colourful and painful history than Lower Parel. I must admit my knowledge is limited to Internet. Also I am a little more interested in the story because I worked there for about 5 years. Back then, I cribbed about the travel woes and garbage dumps on the streets. But the story of Lower Parel still intrigues me.

Apparently, it was a posh area sometime in the 18^th century after the official residence of Governor shifted in Lower Parel. It went through a facelift over the next few years and gradually turned more industrial. For larger part of the twentieth century, it was occupied by textile mills. In parallel, emerged a new habitat of factory workers. By 1980s, it had become a buzzing community where everyone lived as a tribe… an enlarged family with their own inside stories of love and brawls. Their festivals and celebrations were public. The streets were narrow, flanked by small community buildings with one-room houses. Their life revolved around the community. The infrastructure from houses to shops to streets developed around a community life.

And then one day, everything changed. The workers went on strike in 1982 and mills had to stop operations. After the strike lasting almost two years, community fell apart. Cotton mills shifted out of Mumbai, workers went out of job and the factory premises were abandoned.

Today Lower Parel tells a different story. The old mills were taken up by new age offices bringing in glass and steel. Builders made high-rise residential towers for the new white-collar employees of global conglomerates, financial companies and media houses operating out of there. Streets and footpaths were taken by new slum dwellers. Some old mills were turned into fancy clubs and fine dine restaurants bringing in a very unique character to the party outlets not to be found in other planned urban settlements. One of the mill compounds was converted into a shopping mall, aptly named Phoenix Mills.

The streets are still narrow. Some chawls, old buildings with one-room houses, still exist. The entry to a few office complexes is through eerily abandoned mill compounds. New expensive residential apartments stand over small clearings near the slums.

The juxtaposition of new, old and refurbished in Lower Parel feels like a sore to the eye and baffles the confounded mind. This place has seen grandiose, flourishing jobs, happy communities, hunger, violence and dawn of a new world. It’s also a reminder of unplanned urban development in an ancient city of traders.

In this urban jungle with its complicated history of human colonization, I found a forgotten citizen living in oblivion… a tree trying to find a little space of its own. It makes its presence felt vehemently with the roots spreading all over the wall in what appears to be a desperate attempt to live.

On my way back from office a few months back, my colleague’s driver pointed out, ‘doesn’t this look like veins in a human body?!’ Beautiful.

 

 

 

Nature Reclaims

During a discussion about a new project on environment, someone shared a few online pictures of nature reclaiming its space from man. They included some shocking images of trees and shrubs growing through abandoned cycle, cars, ship and railway line. Most of them are interesting and amusing. It might feel unnatural initially to see a cycle embedded in a tree trunk. A moment later, it feels silly to call ‘nature’ unnatural.

The image that moved me most was of tree roots growing through a pavement. It’s less dramatic but more impactful for me. I have seen similar growth in Mumbai many times before and I used to be fascinated with the natural pattern of tree roots. That image felt much more real than the almost unbelievable surreal images of man-made vehicles buried in a jungle of dense trees. It was closer home. In an inconceivable moment, it was easy to simultaneously see the joy of growing life and the agony of life fettered in chains. The growth of these roots finding their way through the pavement is an example of the struggle for survival. Life finds a way.

When I saw a whole bunch of these pictures last week, something changed for me. I kept thinking about a tree I used to see almost every day on my way to work last year. The roots of this tree are spread over a huge wall like a network of veins in a human body… a grotesque yet incredibly beautiful piece of art created by the forces of nature. Now wherever I go in Mumbai, I see more trees with roots sprawling over pavements, roads, fences and buildings. That’s all I see now every time I step out of my home. It’s beautiful and gloomy at the same time.

There are so many of these trees all over Mumbai trying to find their space in the sun. I could easily imagine a forest covering this land a thousand years back that was gradually cut down to make space for traders, capitalists and warring kings. The trees then were happy and healthy. They lived as a community. Now they are restricted and separated. They are alive but slaved. I felt like we took away their home. The spreading roots aren’t a form of revenge; they are attempts to get little more sunlight and space required for survival.

I found this tree growing through the boundary wall of an old building near my home yesterday.

My head is spinning with multiple questions. Is Mumbai even a fit place for humans? Is the environment of Mumbai meant only for a jungle to survive? The city is a port and significant for traders. We grabbed the land, its resources and started to flourish. But in the process, did we create an ecological imbalance we were not supposed to? Do these stifling trees exist in other urban settlements across the world? Is this something to be worried about anyway? May be that’s just how its supposed to be. Perhaps this is the harmony of jungle and city. Perhaps this is the best way for us to coexist. As a city dweller, I want the roads, buildings, railways and other infrastructure. But it bothers me to see the trees being tortured. We took their home. And now they are trying to take it back in an attempt to fight for survival. I wonder what the trees are feeling.

I have never studied biology after school and have no knowledge of the environment. I don’t know much about the trees of Mumbai and the ecological implications of human’s treatment of trees in urban areas. I don’t have any answers. But I can’t get the images out of my mind. Trees and the ever-growing roots are now my latest theme for art. I am fascinated by the patterns of tree roots and the conflict of our coexistence.