[Reader-list] Acts of Leisure - reporting from Mumbai!

[Zainab Bawa]

Dear All,
I am sharing some of my recent field visits' and interview experiences on 
the idea of 'Acts of Leisure'. A lot of my detailed writings are on my blog 
www.xanga.com/CityBytes and so, I am going to run thru some of the things 
here.

In the week gone by, I had interesting interviews with people concerning the 
space of Marine Drive and Nariman Point. One of the residents, Mr. 
Lalchandani, spoke with a great deal of contempt against people who come 
from all over the city to use the promenade space. He felt that the sense of 
belongingness which he had felt at Marine Drive / Nariman Point (MD/NP) is 
lost. He in fact even wanted 'quality control' for the crowds i.e. people 
should be restricted from coming to the promenade because they pollute the 
area, not just in terms of littering, but even in terms of polluting the 
idea of NP/MD as an 'elite, upper middle class area'. His daughter was of 
the view that had the Marine Drive Residents' Association been formed way 
back in '70s and rules strictly enforced, there would have been better 
quality crowd now! I was both amused and angry on hearing all these views.
Mr. Lalchandani went on to tell me how private security had been employed to 
protect and guard the streets and lanes between the art deco buildings at 
MD. He felt that this was needed because the guards were successful in 
keeping away hawkers and drug peddlars from the lanes. From his tone and 
opinions, I could make out that he is quite pro-private security.
On the other hand, the same evening, I spoke to Mr. Daswani and he told me 
that there is no right for the residents of NP/MD to decide who should come 
here and who should not. He felt that his residents' association had done 
nothing to claim greater stakes to the promenade.
One of the questions therefore, which I have been exploring through my own 
work at NP/MD concerns the dyanmics between residents, resident associations 
and public space. Who is the insider, who is the outsider? What are the 
limits to public space? I do not have conclusive answers myself. And I find 
it very intriguing that though we may talk about squatters and slum dwellers 
as outsiders, a lot of people residing in NP/MD in their flats there have 
been migrants and refugees themselves. People I have spoken to are Sindhis 
from Pakistan who came to this city after the partition. I have spoken with 
Gujaratis who bought flats in this area just as a matter of keeping some 
property. Then, by what right do we talk of excluding some from accessing 
space and include some?
The next day, I had another interview with a person uses the NP promenade. 
Later, while we were sitting and chatting, a guy from the crowd got up and 
pissed into the sea following which the security guard patrolling the area 
warned him. After this incident took place, two days later, I spoke with 
Karan Grover, an architect and a resident of the oval area who told me while 
is for 'security to maintain the space', he is against security which 
'restricts enjoyment of the space'. He spoke to me how security comes in as 
a result of population growth and crowding. While he said this, I realized 
that actually, in a city, we operate by signs. The security guard has 
certain ideas. stereotypes and heuristics if I may say so, about 'who' is a 
'miscreant', what he looks like, his mannerisms, etc. I think we operate by 
the same images and heuristics of a migrant, of hawkers, etc. And I guess 
the media plays its prominent role in perpetuating these.
The last dynamic that I have now become conscious of is the act of 
'privatizing' essential services. In Mumbai, water supply and distribution 
is likely to be privatized soon enough. At quite a few public spaces, we 
have water fountains for people in the city. And I am remotely thinking of 
the implications of these acts of privatization on acts of leisure.
Cheers,
Zainab





Zainab Bawa
Mumbai
www.xanga.com/CityBytes

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