Zainab Bawa’s Blog

22 March 2005

 

This evening, I started walking once again. It feels bliss to be back in Mumbai. A sense of serenity prevails me as the train enters Victoria Terminus (VT) Railway Station. In Amsterdam, I was largely accustomed to the workings and the everyday of Central Station. As the train hits VT, I feel that cities across the world speak a fundamental language, something which I am to discover further.

 

I watch Sushanti, the home guard I had spoken to, patrolling on the station. I want to shout out to her but am in a rush to make an appointment. Hmmm, a practitioner and a researcher …

 

Right outside VT, there is a bench on which four Railway Protection Force (RPF) cops were sitting and sipping tea. I thought they were enforcing the rule of “no hawkers within 150 meters of the railway station”. But no, they were only sipping tea and the hawkers were doing their own thing. Arjun bhai, with the photo of Durga hung prominently on his dhanda space, was frenetically selling socks to the city. I lost him in the flurry of the crowds.

 

Just a few furlongs down, there were absolutely no hawkers. I think the global illegal market of VT Station has a dance the rhythms of which I need to bust definitely, sometime soon! Need to be at the station all day on day!

 

I hit the Marine Drive promenade. These are the days of heat in the city … oops! I mean summer days are here again (the city is always in heat!). There are few people on the promenade at 5:00 PM in the evening. I walk past to do another appointment. The crane throwing rocks and boulders in the sea has now moved further up. I see it as an eye sore at the promenade, a symbol of bureaucracy, but for the publics at the promenade, it is a source of urban spectacle and government at work.

 

A few hours down the line, I return back to the promenade. This evening, my experiment at the promenade involves plugging my earphones in my ear, listening to radio and walking up and down the promenade. I walk around, looking here and there. I cannot hear people speak, only loud laughs are audible. I am noting the emotions and sentiments which are expressed on the promenade:

 

ü       Contemplation

ü       Friendship

ü       Intimacy

ü       Love

ü       Desire

ü       Desires

ü       Aspiration

ü       Aspirations

ü       Dreams

ü       Isolation

ü       Reflection

ü       Laughter

ü       Groupism

ü       Companionship

ü       Marriage

ü       Parenthood

ü       Love for one’s child

ü       Depression

ü       Expression

ü       Solitude

ü       Bad Marriage

ü       Sad Marriage

ü       Middle-age Marriage

ü       Middle-age crisis

ü       Tourist excitement

ü       Family Photo sentiments

 

My question for today: what kind of a public space is Marine Drive / Nariman Point? What is the individual vis-à-vis a public space and does this role differ with different public spaces?

 

zainab xanga