Zainab Bawa’s Blog

January 9, 2006

 

R and I went to Mustafa’s chai shop in Imambada

It was 3:30 PM

The door of the shop was half open

Half shut

(almost like the half-sleep eye).

 

Mustafa was not around.

 

I was told – Madam, shop is closed. Will re-open at 4:30 PM .

 

I am enjoying the experience of Khushaali Tea Café (which is what it is called)

It’s unlike the coffee and tea centers in the city.

Timings are based on Mustafa’s desires; Pace is defined by him and not by the contemporary economy and trends.

I still think this is Mustafa’s chai shop, not Khushaali Tea Café; Mustafa defines elements of its space.

(Think it will be exciting to trace the space of chai shop vis-à-vis the neighbourhood.)

I am excited!!!

zainab xanga

January 8, 2006

 

Thus I felt like a bastard today.

 

(The dean of SPA is lecturing right now)

(K. T. Ravindran is his name (and fame))

(I am sitting in a college of architecture)

(The theme of the presentation is ‘heritage and micro-urbanism)

 

What the damn is micro-urbanism???

(R says it is a framework to think through present structure of cities and planning accordingly)

 

(KT is talking about the communities which produce arts and crafts in the old city of Shahjahanabad , Old Delhi)

(He is talking about preserving the old structures and people’s lifestyles there so that Ritu Kumars and Ritu Beris can continue producing their stuff and these people stay employed)

(He is talking about poor groups as being powerless and helpless)

(And how governments don’t care about them)

 

Therefore planners and architects become gods!

 

(And therefore architectural and heritage ‘interventions’ will help to preserve the cultures and lifestyles of these peoples)

(He says he is a humanist)

 

And I am questioning the very idea of humanity

 

What about locality and local relationships?

 

Do we make mush and romance out of the interactions and people at the street level?

 

I think KT is but a ‘heritage activist’

 

 

The sense of frustration that I feel sitting right here, right now is tremendous

I think of the interactions I have with people at the street level

(And I guess I am making myself ‘above everyone’)

I think of architectural interventions

(And interferences)

I think of academia

(And I wonder whether I am part of it)

(Feels like I am! (Oh shit!))

(Feels like I am helpless and powerless in the face of the development taking place around me)

(Feels like … what should I say???)

(Feels like a piece of shit!)

 

 

Thus I feel like a bastard today … the illegitimate child of language and theories, of frameworks and words …

 

 

 

zainab xanga

January 6, 2006

 

11 o’clock at night.

 

I am still at Carter Road . Bus number 1 had just passed by. I imagine there will be another one in 20 minutes to ferry me to Byculla.

 

11:30 PM. No bus in sight. Mobile phone battery is also dead. (No means of communication. But I am not terribly afraid.)

 

Bus number 220 – I am moving towards Bandra station, hoping that there will be more choice of buses there and I will still be able to reach Byculla by 12:30 AM .

 

The crowd at the Saga bus stop is bleak. The regular bunches of burkha clad Muslim are not there (their presence is a form of consolation for me i.e. ‘people ‘like’ me, waiting for a common bus).

 

A couple is there, standing with a baby each on their shoulders. I look at them and know ‘instinctively’ that this is a Muslim couple, sophisticated and educated.

Which buses are you waiting for? I ask

I and 4 number, the woman replies. (She has a kind of near suspicious look.)

I am also waiting for those buses, I said

1 number bus just passed by, the man said.

Oh shit! I remarked.

 

I continued waiting for a bus. Buses would come and buses would go, but none for me (and the Muslim couple – reassured I am!).

 

A fat purdah clad woman came and stood at the bus stop. Her presence was also consolation because I ‘instinctively’ knew that she was also waiting for bus number ¼.

 

(How I mark Muslims and ‘my people’! I wonder about scale and the city – practices of marking, grouping, locality and community – the operation of the eye in the city!)

 

12:00 AM . I am still waiting (and so are the ‘Muslim couple’- I still haven’t verified their identity, but I know). The thought of taking a taxi seems unsafe and expensive. I notice that the couple are also looking at their watches and about to make a move to a taxi. Somehow I also know that they may be going my way – perhaps Byculla or nearby. I approach the woman:

Can we share a taxi?

Yeah, I was about to ask you where you are to go?

Byculla.

Which side?

On the bridge.

Okay, then we can drop you and take the taxi ahead.

 

I am relieved in a way. We board the taxi. I start making conversation:

 

Your babies have fallen off to sleep.

Yes, the kids get very heavy when they are on your shoulders, the man said.

How old are they?

One is 1.5 and the other is nearly 3.5.

That’s a very precarious age. You must be having to spend a lot of energy on them.

Precarious is a mild word, the wife said.

We are both doctors. I am ______ and this is my wife __________ (they were Muslims). I work as a doctor in _________ and she works as dentist in ________.

Oh great, so you are a dentist! I needed to clean my teeth so I will come to you.

Sure.

We advise you to think carefully before you get married and before you have kids. Really, it’s a lot of energy and time and commitment.

 

The discussion on children and raising them went on for sometime.

 

So how come you are so late? (now the man is making most of the conversation)

Work. (I explain my work on cities to him.)

Oh! So you would know more about cities (now I am marked as an ‘expert).

Not really! I am still trying to understand.

I spent my time in London and Paris during my medical education period.

So, how was London ? I have always wanted to be there.

It’s okay. Nothing great! Brits are snooty and cold. Winter is terrible. They follow a five-day working week. Saturday-Sunday holiday. So if you don’t have friends/company/family around, it can be very depressing. I liked Paris better. I would advise you to go there. It is much, much better. Paris is beautiful.

(I wondered a bit about the riots in Paris – and I wondered whether the riots are part of his imagination of Paris .)

 

As the taxi passed along, he asked.

What’s your name?

Zainab.

So you must be Dawoodi Bohra?

No. (And I explained by community affiliation to him, which anyway is meaningless because I don’t practice.)

Oh, I am sorry I asked. (It’s natural I guess.)

 

 

We saw concretization of roads taking place.

 

They are always digging roads.

Yeah.

So, what’s this thing about Bombay becoming a world class city? Do you think Bombay will change and be different in the next ten years?

I can’t make any random conclusions for now. I am somehow beginning to believe that eventually, there will be a massive paradigm shift in terms of economy and business and that might create a new turn for Bombay . Presently, I feel concerned about the way Bangalore is going and the pressure on infrastructure. I think we are still better off in Bombay .

Sure!

But then, the northern suburbs are hugely pressured and collapses might occur there which will be crazy.

Yeah, I guess we are better off in the city region.

Sure enough!

They are talking of clearing slums along P. D’mello Road and Tulsi Pipe Road .

It’s not going to be easy. The communities are very strong there. We can expect rioting if this were to happen. (And my mind went back to rioting in Paris and Danielle’s comments on social housing and how rioting took place in the social housing areas.)

I can imagine. You know things better because you study these! (ah damn!)

 

Byculla came.

The taxi halted.

I opened my wallet to pay for half the fare.

No, no Zainab, the wife said, we were anyway going to ask you to come along with us. Please don’t pay!

 

I thanked them profusely. And I wondered about trust, scale of people, the city, relationships and trust, trust, trust! How do strangers meet in this city!?!?!?!!?

 

Questions for today:

ü              Public transport and the experience/imagination of cosmopolitanism

ü              Public transport and cultural identity and difference

ü              Public transport and practices of marking

ü              Public transport and the division of the city (thereby making it easier to mark in terms of location, neighbourhood and geography)

ü              Imagination of the city (and therefore mind mapping of the city and cognitive maps)

ü              Planning, centralization, authority and subversions – everyday life!

zainab xanga

She

She sits by the entry to Lamington Road. I don’t know her name. Maybe she is part of the locality which I am exploring now. She is local to Lamington Road (or maybe she is not since I am still not sure what I mean by local and locality).

She sells fruit and sometimes vegetables. She is really old – skin wrinkled, hair white, gold, golden brown, grey and some strands of black.

She appeals to you to buy fruit from her.

(This morning I saw a woman in Tara Temple Lane. She was peeping out from the window and haggling with a fish seller on the prices of fish. I wondered how long such negotiation practices will continue in the city given that malls and supermarkets are taking over and defining new practices of business and everyday life! What kind of locality [if any] do supermarkets and malls produce in the contemporary city?)

She appeals to you to buy fruit from her. (Sometimes the fruit is as wrinkled as her skin.)

On most occasions, I ignore her appeals – she is too appealing! But often times, I buy fruit from her. But since the last few days, she has been smiling at me as I walk past her. Her eye recognizes me as a regular (and I still wonder about regularity and marking practices in the city!).

Fortnight ago, I saw her at the Byculla bridge bus stop. I was surprised. But through her interactions in the bus that day, I discovered that she lives at Ghatkopar and comes to Byculla daily. From Byculla, she boards a bus and comes to Grant Road and then sets up her fruit and baskets.

This afternoon, I spoke with her while purchasing some fruit. “I am just about to eat lunch. And you have come this time!” I took the cue and started chatting briefly with her, wanting to explore her notions and practices of locality. She explained her ‘regular’ commuting pattern to me. I understood some; some of her speech was too garbled for me to comprehend anything at all.

I picked some fruit. And as I was readying to leave, she asked me to partake some of the sabudana khichdi which she was about to eat. She handed a little morsel in my palm. I ate, with an immense sense of satisfaction and gratitude.

John Lennon sang, ‘You may think I am a dream’ (and I hope I am not the only one!) …

zainab xanga

As I walk by the city these days, I realize that the political economy of this city is ‘concrete’ …

zainab xanga

Was walking past Dreamland Cinema at Grant Road.

Saw two sweepers pushing two plastic trash cans across the road.

One trash can was yellow; the other was blue.

On the yellow trash can was written in bold red lettering ‘RED LIGHT AREA’.

Does government also mark?

zainab xanga

There are some of
these days when I think about ‘definitions’ and I am bothered …

 

15 ^th December 2005

 

I have suddenly
discovered the camera and am making pictures everywhere I go (these days).

 

Yesterday afternoon,
I was walking past the Grant
Road Bridge ,
making my way to Lamington Road .
Grant Road Bridge
is the home to many pavement dwellers and drug addicts. At one point, I saw a
child screaming and crying, drawing everyone’s attention. The legs of this
little boy were tied. He may have been about three years old. Next to him was
his little sibling. She was a new born infant, deep in slumber, inside a pen. For
a moment, I was shaken by the wailing of the little boy. For a moment, I was
moved by the cruelty of the act of tying his feet. But when I brought out my
camera, I decided not to moralize the picture, but to show one more aspect of
street life in one part of the city. I did not have the courage to make the
picture from forward. So I decided to go back and make the picture. I
photographed. A little commotion ensued. A woman came running and she came up
close to me saying, ‘No photos’, ‘No pictures’. I was frightened. I decided to
show her the picture I had made and delete it in front of her eyes to reassure her.
She grabbed me by my arm and pushed me away, ‘go away from here’.

My guess was that
the woman was mildly mentally deranged. She was very aggressive when she pushed
me. I began to wonder why the child’s legs were tied. My only guess is that maybe
its mother did not want it to wander around the road in her absence; so this
was a good way to keep the child put – basically safety of the child.

The lady who pushed
me may have been the mother. And again I guessed – perhaps she did not want me
to make the picture, thinking that if I were a social worker type, I would take
away her children thinking that she is a cruel mother and put them in foster
care – I am only guessing here!

What interested me about
the experience was the definition of rights – are rights truly universal? In
the context of lifestyles and cultures, do rights take on relative meanings? For
instance, in the case of this child, there may have been perfectly legitimate
reasons for tying his legs in the context of their lifestyle and culture – does
the rights’ framework then do unintended violence to such people and cultures? Does
it give power of definitions (in the Foucaultian sense) to certain groups to
intervene on behalf of the greater good (greater good questionable in this
case)?

 

 

 

10 ^th December 2005

 

My classmate in the
photography class is discussing a project idea. His project is to photograph
garbage. He has been an NRI (Non-Resident Indian) and was irked by the sight of
garbage when he came to India .
He wonders how people can be so insensitive to something which is so evident. He
wants to project garbage in a way that will make people want to do something
about it.

 

I had an
interesting experience this morning. I was walking by the bridge on Byculla
when I saw a rag picker picking up an orange fruit from the trash lying on the road.
It was his breakfast. He ate hungrily and was reasonably satisfied as the
pleasure of the fruit drew to an end.

 

I wondered about
garbage that evening. What is trash to me is food to someone else; trash irks
me because I want a clean city, yet, that trash is food for someone else. Who defines
dirty? Who defines clean? Are we Foucaultian here again in our everyday lives
and practices?

 

While re-picturing
the rag picker picking fruit from the trash heap, I wondered, what are the
points of negotiation between one group’s ideal of a clean city and another
group’s city which exists through trash? (Perhaps trash is what makes up their
city …)

 

 

 

8 ^th December 2005

 

Visiting Imambada
has become a regular jaunt. I sit in Khushali Tea Café, a Muslim Irani Tea
Joint to understand the notion of public space. This evening, as I was wading
my way through the crowded and busy street of Imambada, I wondered about
locality and lifestyles.

 

A city is an
agglomeration of different lifestyles, each emerging from local histories. In the
process of creating the global city ( Shanghai , Singapore , Hong Kong ,
King Kong!), we are either wiping away locality or are commodifying (read
culture-izing) it through alluding to its ‘unique culture’, making it yet
another Moroccan Birdcage as Jonathan Raban spoke in his book ‘Soft City’.

 

While wading
through sweat and dust and grime (and experience), I was disturbed by the
definition of public space and the image/s which the term ‘public space’ evokes.
Maybe public space is what is clean, well maintained, a park, a garden, an open
space, etc. In my worldview, Khushali Tea Café is a public space, one which is
interesting and yet has problems of its own. One of the problems with Khushali
is that it is a male centric public space. Imambada is a Muslim neighbourhood;
women rarely come to Khushali on their own (and in this respect, my position as
a researcher in the café is disturbing to me and to the store owner as I am
constantly being watched ‘as a single, lone woman’). If women come to Khushali,
then they are largely accompaniments (read appendage) to the men. Yet, Khushali
is a critical space where locality is produced and reproduced. It is a
gathering space, a meeting space. Tea costs Rs. 3 (and I bet it is the most
fantastic and simple tea you would have ever had! Try with salt and lemon and
the definition of tea will change …). The store owner, who is the tea maker and
the space creator, has no pretensions about his existence – drink your tea if
you like; don’t drink tea; sit if you please without wanting to drink; do what
you like! – and then he grumbles about having to wake up early and customers
pouring till late at night – I have a 12 hour job, he grumbles, I have to wake
up in the morning to run the water pump and I am functioning ever since then! Do
I have a life? – and he goes on grumbling and making tea!

 

Public space huh? Whose
the public? What is public? Where is the space? What is the space? Why is the
space? …

 

…

 

Definitions huh?

 

…

 

I am bothered …

 

…

zainab xanga

Tonight I am eating dinner with TC. As I was making plans for the evening, mom started saying:

 

Are you eating dinner with him tonight? Now what is the deal? I thought it was over with him (as in the walks are over, now why do you need to deal with him).

I need to finish some business with him,

 

Tonight, I was going to hand over the fee collections from the Urban Buffet Walks so that the money could be used for his Nagpada basketball court. We decided to eat at the Chinese restaurant at Minara Masjid, Mohammed Ali Road .

 

I passed through Pydhonie to get to Mohammed Ali Road . These were the same streets we had walked through during Ramzaan. But the streets were closing down for night’s rest at 10:30 PM. And come to think of it, some days ago, these were the same streets which were open and vibrant all night and the press talked and lauded these areas as the culture of Mumbai.

 

The Minara Masjid area showed some remains of a festive season passed by. The street was less crammed, yet food was the activity. I noticed Suleimaan Usmaan which was advertising Kashmiri Honey on sale and my mind went back to that Saturday night of 29 ^th October when blasts rocked Delhi and the turbulence after shocks were felt in Mumbai with relatives and well wishers calling participants of the Urban Buffet walk – beta, are you sure you want to go there? Be careful. These could just be the areas which may be blasted next.

 

[Aren’t cities wired together by mediated (literally) images in this age of Aaj Tak, NDTV, STAR News, Zee and all those satellite dishes?]

 

I sat at the Chinese restaurant waiting for TC to show up. TC is now a common subject for talking to people. My folks at home now know him as an entity and yet, they have their own imaginations and assumptions about him. Dad tells me – what do you think he is going to eat in a Chinese restaurant? He will ask for bheja fry and kaleji – as if implying that TC cannot have tastes which my sophisticated parents have.

 

He came on his scooter. He was wearing his usual sports cap, jeans and shirt and sports shoes. This was in complete contrast to his looks in the month of Ramzaan where he would wear a pure white kurta and pyjama, accompanied by the skull cap.

 

We sat in the restaurant and after ordering food, we began talking:

 

You are back to your regular appearance now?

Yes, yes! Oh yes! I have to be Muslim at least for one month. This malaria struck me on the 26 ^th fast, but I did not leave my fasts (suggesting to me that I should have also observed all the 30 fasts.)

But you did not do duty in this month.

I had a leave for the first 18 days. Thereafter I had to do duty. But I had told my colleagues that bhai, it is difficult to stand on two feet in the last few fasts, I can’t get into the magachmari of fighting with passengers and levying fines. They (seniors) also respect fasting. So they understood what I was saying.

Hmmm.

So how are the people who came on the walks?

They are all fine. Each one of them enjoyed the experience.

I was a bit nervous.

Bit? Very nervous!

Yes, very nervous. I could not understand what to do with 18 people at one time.

Everything went off well.

Yes! I now want to go out with this group of yours.

Hmmm.

 

TC is obviously excited. He enjoyed the experience himself and perhaps there is some kind of class upliftment he feels after the experience. I don’t know.

 

As we were eating, the conversation continued:

 

The food at this place is excellent. When my group comes here, we binge. I like this chutney (referring to the schezuan sauce).

 

He kept eating with the fork and spoon and continued:

 

I enjoy eating good food, wearing good clothes and traveling. What else does a man earn for?

Yeah! I can imagine how much you enjoy traveling. And that’s what makes you what you are!

Haha! We must explore some eating place at Bandra. I just know of places here, in our area.

 

Bandra was an interesting remark. It’s a statement of cultural aspiration and upliftment. Bandra symbolizes a global city dream – glamour, Page 3, parties, celebs! Eateries, coffee, the promenade and the works – Bandra is the sub-city within this city!

 

 

After we finished eating, he offered to drop me home on his scooter. I hopped on, sloppily. The roads were clear. He kept on talking and I kept nodding.  

 

There is no law and order in this city when it comes to traffic.

Why do you say so? Just because it is night time now and the signals are not working?

No, no! It is the same in daytime. We have to be careful while driving.

Hmmm.

You will find that at the corner of the signal at J.J. Hospital , a havaldar stands but he does nothing. I break the signal in front of his eyes. Everyday I let 20 cops pass by traveling in first class. At least I should also be able to get away without paying fines.

 

He proudly announced that he has not even once paid a fine! And I started thinking about how some negotiations/confrontations between the legal and the illegal are about canceling out each other! Hmmm …

 

Finally we reached Byculla:

Do you know that it will soon be a year now since we met?

Really? I don’t even remember the date.

Nor do I!

So let’s make happy birthday – celebrate! And all we can do then is to eat – that’s okay nah?

 

Yeah! Happy birthday to us!

zainab xanga

At Marine Drive / Nariman Point today, I was walking. I noticed people walking about the promenade. Back to the cosmopolitan question, I realized that our clothes, make-up and accessories give us some kind of image (and here I am talking about a certain class) where we look similar in some respects and our identities become camouflaged. Yet I am not sure of the fact of whether our identities become unimportant because at some level, in my experiences since one year, I have found that everyone (irrespective of class), wants to know my religious affiliation.

Walking on the promenade was S. J. Kunte, the chief of MHADA. And even he was lost in the crowds. No one seemed to bother about him. No one to approach him and ask about the collapsing buildings in the city. Seems like the Marine Drive promenade is an unconscious, non-intrusive space.

zainab xanga

This morning, I was in bus number 85. The crowd of this bus is completely different from the one in number 69. The crowd in 85 no. is hip and cosmopolitan. These days, G and I are asking people about their notions of cosmopolitanism and a common response we have been getting is that cosmopolitan is that space/ideology/city where identity is unknown and where religion acquires secondary identity. I found the women in the bus wearing glossy L’Oreal lipsticks and dressed in tight jeans and skirts as against the women I see in number 69. The atmosphere in the bus was quite different. Felt like back to the college days in number 134 …

 

 

 

zainab xanga