Zainab Bawa’s Blog

27th March 2006

 

This evening, I am at Marine Drive. It has been several days since I have come to Marine Drive. My fascinations and preoccupations with Khushali and Aga Mustafa kept me away from here. But the experience of the picnic yesterday with Mustafa and his relatives and friends made me think that I am missing out on something if I am not coming to Marine Drive. Let me explain a little here.

 

All this while, I have been on Mustafa and Café Khushaali’s case. A fancy of community space, defining public and space within the confines of a neighbourhood kept me probing. But I realized that I needed to go back to the ‘public space’ with which I started my first research excavations i.e. Marine Drive. There is definitely something different to the publicness and the space of Marine Drive. There is anonymity and yet marking, unlike Café Khushaali where anonymity is non-existent (based on the observations thus far). However, what is present in the space of Café Khushaali are contests of various sorts – contests based on identity, contests of definition of legality and illegality, contests between the neighbourhood and the city in terms of imaginations and representations in the media (I say representations, as in plural, because Imambada and the Muslim World in this part of the city are from time to time, represented as illegal, dangerous and yet, ‘cultural’ and adding to the ‘diversity’ of the city in the print media), etc.

 

I landed at Marine Drive at about 7 PM. Work on refurbishing the promenade has gradually begun. ARC Associates (the consortium awarded the contract for refurbishing) has begun a little bit of work. Interestingly, little concrete cube bricks have been laid out on the promenade, about two feet away from the edge of the footpath. It seems like two walking tracks have been created. For a moment, I felt that the concrete bricks are being laid to create a clear boundary between the footpath and the main road. It presented a sense of boundedness, something that is new to the space of the promenade. Earlier, the story of the space of the promenade was a flow characterized by un-boundedness, by a flow of people from the roads to the promenade, the flow of traffic, etc. In essence, there were no physical boundaries and yet, behaviours and practices of space helped maintain certain boundaries. Now, with the concrete bricks laid down, the first physical boundary has been created. And it makes the space of the promenade distinctly different.

 

The plan for refurbishing the promenade is that it will be made to look world-class, adding to the image of Mumbai as a mega-city, a world-class city! Perhaps the designs have gained ‘inspiration’ from the promenade in Dubai. Some consultations were held with the residents of the area as the design was being finalized. And yet, my question remains that if Marine Drive is a ‘public space’, then whose aspirations should be reflected in the refurbishing and additions to the space. Which public has a ‘stake’? Is there any ‘stake’ at all?

The residents owning flats and living around Marine Drive are largely individuals who have visited ‘abroad’, seen Manhattan and New York, been to Dubai, etc. and in a sense, their aspirations are reflected in the new design. (Interestingly, most of the residents owning flats and living around Marine Drive are ‘migrants’ themselves, most being Sindhis who arrived here after Partition, Gujaratis in the textile business who, prior to the creation of Bombay, had bought property here as investment of their riches, and some Arabs and Parsis, which largely makes up the composition of the ‘Marine Drive neighbourhood’.)

 

It is look at the refurbishing of Marine Drive and I question the notion and practice of ‘intervention’, particularly interventions by architects, planners and designers. How do these interventions impact space? What kind of consciousness and environments do architects, designers and planners work under? Is design free of politics?

 

I walk along the promenade, up and down. It appears that the space of the promenade has been flattened. Yeah, seriously! Contests have been flattened out. Hawkers appear here and there, but there is no sense/perception of power, of hierarchy, of politics. A public is here, oblivious of transformations in the urban, enjoying the sea breeze.

 

Yeah, space has been flattened. And as I walk past NCPA this evening, I start to think of society. It appears to me that these days, contests are either flattened, or eliminated or subverted. And power has now begun to move into the insides of structure, structure as represented by the new built forms and spaces, emerging structures of power, top-down politics, faceless leadership, structures of organization within multi-national companies, controls of media, etc. And as the politics and contests of the street are made less and less visible (I will not say invisible because they are still there, except that now they are not visible to the ‘naked eye’), power and politics begins to become inaccessible.

zainab xanga

26 ^th March 2006

 

This evening, Aga Mustafa and some of his relatives and friends are going to Mira Road. The aim is to go for the closing customs of the month of Moharram, but Aga’s special interest is in eating the khichda (a Muslim speciality made of lentils and tenderized mutton). He has readied himself for the picnic (though he does not overtly call it picnic). He has packed plates, lime pieces, a bottle of Pepsi, his RSP Scout whistle, his cap and spoons – ready to feast!

 

I meet Aga’s nephew Ghulam, another mad Irani man. He calls me zaani (girl). Today’s post is about Ghulam’s wife Aaliya.

 

A white Maruti van is ready to take us to Mira Road (on the outskirts of Mumbai, under the jurisdiction of Mira-Bhayendar municipality).

I step inside the van. A woman with a chadar (a type of veil worn by Muslim women) is sitting in the corner, a little snuggled. She looks at me a little curiously. I smile at her.

As the car begins to move, she asks Mustafa whether I am his relative. Mustafa asks me to explain myself to her. I tell her what I do.

Aaliya is all of twenty-three. But if I look at her, I think she is thirty-five.

“I had a perfect figure when I married him (she does not call Ghulam by his name). I was thin, even though I was an avid rice eater (rice associated with starch which leads some people to put on weight). Then I delivered Azeeze (their two and half year old daughter) and I lost my figure. I put on a lot of weight.”

“Don’t you want another child,” I asked her.

“Her father says we should have one more child. But I told him that I will conceive another baby only after I have regained my figure. I therefore want to join a gym.”

 

Aaliya was about nineteen when she was married to Ghulam. She says she was in the ninth standard when the marriage took place and hence, she has not completed schooling. Aaliya clearly says that she is from Lucknow while Ghulam is from Iran. Aaliya does not know Persian but she says she is learning a little as she is getting used to the language in the house. At some point, Aaliya tells me, “You see, these Irani people don’t have brethren among them. Look at us Shias, we have so much of love between ourselves and our brothers.” I am not surprised by Aaliya’s words. The belief that Muslims are one homogenous community is as fallacious as saying that milk is red in colour. Among sub-communities within Muslims, there are tremendous antagonisms and prejudices against one another. And therefore, just as there cannot be a singular imagination of the Hindu, I think there cannot be a singular imagination of the Muslim.

 

I suddenly ask Aaliya, “What is the age difference between your husband and you?”

“What do you think?” she asks, smilingly.

I tell her I don’t know.

She responds, “He is forty years old now!”

I am shocked. I ask her, “Did you not know his age when you married him?”

“An Irani aunty brought the rishta (proposal) to my mother. At that time, they said to us that he is about thirty. It is only after I married him that I found out his real age. Earlier, when I was thin, he would say we look mismatched. Now that I have put on weight, he says I look ‘proper’. But I tell you, it happens that when your husband is so much older than the wife, the wife starts to look much older after a while.”

 

Aaliya’s maiden home is near the ghat , close to Bamkhana , around the Dongri neighbourhood. Aaliya was coming to Mira Road for the first time in her life. She was excited and pleased. She comes across as helpless and fearsome. “When I was young, I would never leave my mother and go out alone. I have never faced the world alone. And hence, today, I find it difficult to move out on my own.”

 

Aaliya has mixed feelings towards Ghulam. She finds him unhelpful. “I fell off from the train five to six months ago and twisted my foot. But look at this man, he has not taken me to a proper bonesetter as yet. I have asked him to look after Azeeze while I go to a bonesetter. He refuses to do that as well.” Today, Aaliya walks with a twist, limping her way forward.

 

Aaliya wants to learn how to drive a car. I tell her it is not very difficult. But when she puts up her case before Ghulam, he says, “There is so much traffic and it is dangerous to drive.” Clearly, he is evading her request. She argues back and after a while, he cares not to listen.

 

I look at Aaliya and she reminds me of my own mother who, at one time, was helpless before my father for little, little things. As for me, having seen the helplessness of my mother, I decided to go all out and confront the world. Today, while I have confronted aspects of the world, I have my own new set of fears about success, name and fame!

 

But let’s come back to Aaliya, Aaliya to who this post is tributed and attributed. I look at Aaliya and I come back to the city. It is said that the city is a space where people can explore freedom, where identity can be shed and you can mix into the sea of anonymity. Yet, I look at Aaliya and wonder about her and the city. Perhaps to her, the world outside of her house, outside of her identity, outside of her thoughts, perceptions and paradigms, is too dangerous to tread into/onto. There is a sea of unknown out there for Aaliya, too dangerous and too difficult. As we head back to the place where the car is parked in order to get back home, Aaliya smirks and tells me, “Look at my husband. He is walking away to glory, without bothering and caring to see whether his wife is following him or not. Would he look for me if I went away? Maybe someday I will leave him and go!” In my own mind, I smile as I hear these words. They have been words I have heard from my mother till about some years ago. And now, I hear them from Aaliya.

 

Helplessness, anxiety, anguish, and yet, living.

What do I call this?

Multiple city worlds, worlds that we have not tread into, so I speak here!

I say bye to Aaliya as I step out of the car, heading back home. She says, “Bye. I will remember this time we spent together!”

 

Adios!

 

 

zainab xanga