[Reader-list] Urban from the Lens of Space and Time

[Zainab Bawa]

The Urban from the Lens of Time and Space

Dear All,

The current research is an initial survey of two sites in Mumbai city i.e. 
the railway station and the seafront. The purpose of the survey is to look 
at the everyday practice of space and time in a city. How is the Urban 
undergoing transformation/s with changes in the notions and practices of 
space and time?

While looking at the Urban from this perspective, my hope is also to examine 
larger questions of public space and private property. The seafront is an 
important part of the life of a Mumbaiite. It is a breathing space from the 
pace of the city. Simultaneously, along the seafront are residential 
buildings and societies, offices and hotels. How is this space then shared? 
Who is an insider and who is an outsider? How do the negotiations take place 
and what are the images of each? The two seafronts that I will be examining 
here are Nariman Point and Worli Sea Face.
Similarly, the railway stations are a quintessential part of our heritage in 
Mumbai – VT and Churchgate at sites and nodes of transport in the city. And 
this transport is of various kinds, that of economy and workforce, of life 
and death, of people, ideas and groups and of various kinds of horizons and 
worldviews.

The Seafront and the Railway Station provide a very interesting combination 
in terms of time and space – the notions of ‘organization’ and 
‘disorganization’, and also the concepts of ‘shared’, ‘public’ and 
‘community’. Who organizes time and space in both these locations? In terms 
of time, the seafront with its leisured pace versus the railway station with 
its rushed, hectic and frenzied pace could provide cues into envisioning the 
kinds of community spaces which would serve as meeting spaces between 
different peoples and groups. What kinds of cross-interactions and 
parallel-interactions take place between these two sites in a city?

Following is my first posting of Day 1 at VT Station.

Zainab Bawa


14 September 2004
VT Station
6:00 PM

This evening, I visited VT station. Today is my first day of observation 
here and I am clearly apprehensive. I am concerned about the fast pace of 
the crowds and my slow intentions. I am worried about being pushed and 
jostled aside by the crowds whose perhaps one point goal at this time is to 
board their respective trains and get comfortable seats inside the 
compartments. I wish I was invisible – gayab!

I boarded a slow train from Byculla station to reach VT. While in the ladies 
compartment, I began to think that the compartment and the local train share 
a distinct relationship with the railway station. The railway station is a 
site of transition and the space inside the compartment is also a transitory 
space. But, while the railway station is a site of chaos, the compartment is 
a space where some order and peace exist. People rush on the railways 
station, but once inside the compartment, there is clearly a change in the 
pace.

As the train slowed down at VT station, I continued to sit in my seat. On 
occasions such as these, I become very obedient. Some rules are important to 
obey if you desire for your safety as well as that of others. Hmmm, maybe 
laws are actually rules about a certain way of life in which the individual 
and the community around him can live in harmony. The moment the train 
slowed down at VT, women rushed inside the compartment like bullets shooting 
in different directions. The situation was what I would very aptly describe 
as ‘shooting in the dark’ and reaching your target. Few moments ago, the 
space inside the compartment was calm, and now there was violent chaos. For 
these three to five minutes, the compartment space had turned into something 
completely different. But, at the end of it all, there are no enemies, no 
foes. It is all about the seats my dears!

Cut to VT Station – VT Station is a junction for Harbour Railway Line and 
Central Railway Line trains. The first train in India had run from Bombay to 
Thane, something which we Mumbaikers are proud of till date. VT station is 
an important part of our collective heritage and what I find most 
interesting is that this heritage is a not a memory of history – it is a 
practice of everyday. VT is more than a railway station. Its antique British 
structure is continuously undergoing changes. Let me give you an example of 
one of the changes which I observed today. I parked myself neatly near a 
pole from where I could see a section of the station and the crowds. 
Immediately, my eyes fell upon the newly installed stopwatches on each of 
the platforms. The stopwatches were ticking away diligently – this is their 
foremost duty. I played a game with my eyes and my mind. I started moving my 
gaze quickly from one stopwatch to another and my goodness, the seconds ran 
past by me into an eternity of time. The stopwatches couldn’t care much for 
me; neither did they care much for the people who were hurrying away at the 
station. In contrast was the grandfather clock, suspended from the ceiling 
right in the center of the station. The grandfather clock had two hands, the 
long one for the minutes and the shorter one for the hours. The grandfather 
clock is very deceptive. While the stopwatches were dutifully performing 
their function of ticking away regardless of the people, the grandfather 
clock was sarcastically watching the people and laughing away at the irony 
of man. The grandfather clock was much relaxed – someday I think these 
stopwatches might have to be hospitalized for hypertension of the nervous 
system! I hope that the grandfather clock and me will soon have our own 
ethereal discussions of space and time.

The People: AT VT Station, it is important to learn how to watch people. The 
process is similar to playing ping-pong with several balls in the air. 
Today, I was feeling dizzy. My weak eyes could not catch up with the 
lightening speed of the several peoples, but heck, I have to become 
skillful. People have their own ways of movement on the station. A segment 
of the people move about in a robotic fashion where their bodies appear to 
be programmed to this daily activity. Nothing disturbs them. It’s like they 
automatically know how, where and why they are moving. They are like sieves, 
sieving through the crowds. Then there is a segment of the crowds which is 
clearly in a hurry because they are either just in the nick of time to board 
their trains or that their trains are about to leave in a few seconds and 
they must hurry if they are to ‘catch’ this train. Then there is another 
segment of the crowds which is confident – neither in hurry nor leisurely. 
They are the reassured lot which know that they are well in time for their 
train. Then, there is clearly a gender distinction i.e. the different ways 
in which men and women hurry. And even within the same sex, there are marked 
differences, for instance, the young and the old, the middle-aged, the 
workingwomen housewife and the singe workingwomen, etc. (As you will see, I 
have become more adept at noting women than men!)
There are two ways to enter and exit VT station. One way is through the 
subway and the other is through the platform for outstation railway trains. 
In the evening, people pour inside from both ends and believe you in me, 
it’s mad! But what is unique about us human beings is the order which we 
bring into this madness, the manner in which we work our ways out! I am 
still not certain about the limitations of this process, but for the moment, 
I am both fascinated and analytical.
Today I saw that when men have to wait at VT Station, they usually stand 
beneath the indicator. They are right in the middle of the crowds. Women, in 
contrast, stand on the opposite side i.e. at the beginning of each platform, 
huddled around at the EMU Halt. I understand now that women feel vulnerable 
amidst crowds and prefer to create their own space, among their own sister 
fraternity. Usually, the groups of women are the train groups. They are 
waiting for their other train friends to join in. Some of these 
groups/individual women are waiting either because they are waiting for 
‘their’ train or because ‘their’ train is packed and they are waiting for 
‘their’ next train where the prospects of getting seats are brighter, bigger 
and better. Men also wait for ‘their’ trains – the indicator keeps signaling 
from time to time about where the next few trains arriving will be bound 
outwards. The space below the indicator is also a meeting place for men. 
This meeting place is about ‘conducting business’. Today when I was standing 
amidst the men, a man suddenly came from the subway entry towards one of the 
men in (my) group and shouted out loud, “Bhenchod (fucker), couldn’t you 
wait another ten more minutes for me? Don’t you know that I come from 
Churchgate and that takes me a while to get here? Come on now, here is your 
parcel.” After this friendly-violent exchange of verbal volleys, both men 
patted each other’s backs, conducted ‘their business’ and went their ways. 
This is what I call ‘normal’. There are also meetings which take place 
between girls-boys and men-women, for different purposes, not necessarily 
for love, but also for business. There are family meetings at the railway 
station – the one I saw today was filmi where the mother and daughter were 
waiting for the latter’s beau to come and meet the mother. Similarly, 
mother-in-law and daughter-in-law pairs wait for their man (son and husband 
respectively) to join them at the station and then, the parivaar boards the 
train – happy family!

Pace of the Crowds – Contrasts and Similarities, Visibility and 
Invisibility: Like I mentioned earlier, the pace of the crowds is hectic, 
frenzied and crazy. But regulars are well adjusted with all of this. For 
them, it is about knowing how to go about conducting their own business and 
dodging with the crowds. No one cares for the other, but yet, cares enough 
to know how much distance and space to maintain for successful juggling. I 
strolled along one of the platforms where a Ladies Special Train was parked. 
I noticed the way in which people were hurriedly walking and running, and 
sometimes, pushing the slow ones aside so that they can get to their trains 
and compartments. For the slow-paced, there is a price to pay for their 
‘individuality’ here – thou shall either be pushed around or cursed for 
his/her insensitivity to time and the people around.
There are schizophrenics hanging around at the platforms. They have their 
own slow pace – of course, you could say they are in another world 
altogether. But these are important people. They are dirty; smell heavily, 
unclean and unkempt. Some of them stare at you angrily, almost intimidating 
you; some of them are having their conference with beings who are invisible 
to the naked eyes of us ‘normals’. Normals usually ignore the 
schizophrenics. They will not push them or curse them; they will simply 
ignore them. In this aspect, the railway station leads me to question the 
boundaries between ‘normal and abnormal’, between ‘crazy and balanced’ and 
between ‘image and reality’. I could easily think of those normals talking 
on their hands-free equipments as schizophrenics until I realize that the 
conversation is not with an invisible, but with somebody at the other end of 
the phone. I have to sharpen my eyes!
The Railway Station is a site of anonymity and transitory visibility. From 
my observations today, I think this is largely created by the pace and the 
time (greater visibility in the slack hours; lesser visibility in the 
peak/rush hours). Two women (apparently close friends) were walking 
hurriedly at the station to board their train. One of them fell with a thud 
on the floor. The crowds quickly helped her stand up and on rising, the 
crowds went their way and she along with her friend went her way. She was 
briefly visible, but the transitions are so sudden that these memories are 
highly short-term and subject to quick erasure. I was myself visible from 
time to time. New groups would gather around me and watch me. As soon as the 
current group’s trains would arrive, the group would disintegrate and a new 
collection would gather around me.

Organization and Disorganization: While standing at the station, I began to 
imagine whether the crowds would disperse at any point and whether there 
would be some ‘breathing space’ at all. Suddenly, on Platform Nos. 7 and 8, 
two long-distance trains arrived – one for Kasara and the other Karjat. With 
the arrival of these two trains, the crowds suddenly cleared up for the next 
five-eight minutes. This was one form of organization-disorganization that I 
noticed today. Perhaps there might be other ways, and I hope to get familiar 
with them gradually.

Everyday Devices – Mobile Phones versus Wristwatches: What I find highly 
fascinating these days is to watch the way in which the mobile phone is 
increasingly becoming the device (can also be read as the-vice/ de-vice) of 
the everyday. Several people had the hands-free earphones plugged into their 
ears. The reasons for this behaviour are several. One of the reasons is 
conversation and talking. The other is listening to radio. Another is 
listening to the radio and effectively shutting oneself from the crowd. Yet 
another is listening to the radio and effectively shutting oneself from the 
pace of the crowd and creating order and peace in one’s mind. The mobile 
phone has more uses than the obvious one – it is a radio, now also an MP3 
Player. It is a watch, for both time and location. I find that the mobile 
phone is fast replacing the wristwatch. Most people have their phones in 
their hands; phones show the time just as much as watches do. A look at the 
phone helps you catch the time as well as missed calls and messages 
received. The wristwatch is becoming a mere tool of ornamentation. There is 
a lot more to this play between the mobile phone and the wristwatch, but 
more on that with more and more observations.

Property: I was standing at the pole above which was the indicator. There 
was a red-colour dustbin tied with a steel chain to the pole. Inside the 
dustbin was a black plastic bag into which all the rubbish was constantly 
being dumped. While this might be an insignificant observation, it revealed 
to me the notion of property. Obviously, the dustbin was chained to the pole 
so that it would not be stolen away – who would steal it? I do not want to 
make too many guesses, though there is a lot going on in my mind. But 
simply, can property be shared? What about heritage - whose property is 
heritage?

Highlight of the Day: The first Ladies Special Train along Harbour Line, 
from VT to Vashi. I somehow feel I am responsible for this development. 
Maybe I am a good omen.

Conclusion: Speed, time and space, all three elements at play at the Railway 
Station. I now wish to stand in the Bombay Stock Exchange someday and watch 
the play of these elements along with the ticking figures – volatile, 
momentary cash economy.

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