[Reader-list] The Seafront - The urban through the lens of space and time

[Zainab Bawa]

22 September 2004
Nariman Point
6:00 PM

This evening, I walked along Nariman Point before settling down in my usual 
place. My usual place is a bit diagonally away from the main entrance to 
Hilton Towers Hotel, very close to the new MCGM Pay & Park shack. As I 
walked, I noticed a man in his late-twenties, talking on the cell phone. 
This one seemed like the South Mumbai office-executive, belonging to the 
upwardly mobile group. He was smiling as he chatted away on his phone. The 
cell phone is an important part of the life of young people in this city. 
These young people are the by-products of the new market economy including 
call center workers and young executives and professionals in fields like 
PR, Advertising, Finance, Media and Journalism, etc. The cell phone is a 
medium to ‘stay in touch’. It allows you the luxury to chat/communicate 
with your loved ones, with your friends and the support group in your life. 
While these days newspapers are flashing the deal about young people having 
cell phones because parents want to keep tabs on their babies, my own 
perspective is that the cell phone is an important emotional support system 
through which you can access your personal support network. The cell phone 
has different relevancies for different age groups. Often I see young 
joggers along Nariman Point and Worli Sea Face, jogging away in their track 
pants and sports shoes and panting hard, but with a smile on their face as 
they simultaneously chat with their ‘someone special’ (could be anybody) 
through the hands free. This young man today was also wearing his happy 
smile as he was talking on the phone. He had a glow on his face. In the 
humdrum, frenzies and frazzles of the everyday (with elements of time, 
economy, cash, security, restrictions and bans on restrictions and rush), 
the cell phone is a vital equipment in times of loneliness and solitude when 
time seems unceasing and unrelenting and the phonebook comes to your rescue. 
You browse through your phonebook and make a few calls to people. One of my 
acquaintances often does this when he is unable to face empty time – he 
will start making calls to people he hasn’t been in touch with for a while 
and feel good about the conversations. Someday I will try to pull him into 
having a conversation with us here!
The cell phone is an everyday equipment, now accessible to people belonging 
to different economic classes. It is increasingly appearing to replace the 
land phone. Mobile technology for mobile peoples – new sounds and 
technologies replacing the old – what is the value of the old in the age 
of the new?

Today is an unusually hot and tiring day. For me it has been a long day of 
research and juggling between the centuries of AD, BC (Before Christ I mean) 
and the present, speculating on the future. But despite the heat and me, the 
crowd on the sea face is as usual; rather, I find the place to be more 
crowded today. In the past, when we friends in college used to come here in 
the evenings, there was usually less crowd. These days, the crowds have 
increased phenomenally and there is no concept of over crowding on Nariman 
Point on weekends. It seems like overcrowded everyday! In one of my meetings 
with a practicing architect in the city, he mentioned to me about his idea 
of ‘shared spaces’. He drew parallels to the beaches in North America 
and the seafront in Mumbai where, the residents of the locality/area have 
greater stake and space on the seafront/beaches on weekdays while they 
retreat and let ‘outsiders’ use the space on weekends. During all these 
days of my visit to Nariman Point, I am finding it hard to locate the 
concept, notion and practice of ‘residents’. It seems to me that the 
residents’ breed is almost non-existent here. Maybe I am required to visit 
this place in the early mornings to do a rain check. There are speculative 
theories floating in mind. One of the theories is the movement of residents 
from Nariman Point to Bandra. This movement is a critical one as South 
Mumbai is no longer the exclusive glamorous spot of the city; Bandra and 
Andheri are taking over big time. The concept of resident and outsiders is 
perhaps more noticeable at the seafronts at Bandra including Bandstand and 
Carter Road (with its famous Joggers’ Park). Again, the news doing the 
rounds is that Nariman Point will soon be receiving a 30-crore facelift from 
our dear government. I don’t know yet what the facelift entails – I 
simply hope it’s not a cosmetic surgery! Another theory involves that I 
change my own location at Nariman Point and move over to the residential 
locales where residents will most likely be seen!

Let’s move further. I settled myself on my usual spot (gradually becoming 
my comfort zone) and began watching. These days, people watch me as I sit 
with a note pad and a pen. I guess most of them mistake me for some sort of 
a journalist. I also like acting this way. I think I have become an actress 
– bahurupi of a cunning kind! Maybe this will help me someday when I do 
the rounds of people’s houses, asking for food and being invited in for 
shelter along with food!

College-going Romance: The seafront on weekdays and Saturdays is the hub for 
college-goers, mainly those studying in colleges around South Mumbai. You 
can notice college-goers in groups of fours, fives and sixes or in pairs. 
Pairs could be girl-girl, boy-boy or girl-boy. This evening, my eyes were 
stuck on different girl-boy pairs, mainly those walking on the track (mobile 
you may call them). One of the girl-boy pairs was an interesting one – the 
girl was very clearly keen in expressing her affections for her guy. While 
the guy held the girl around her waist as they walked, the girl would speak 
a little and then rush up to the guy’s cheeks and kiss him. She did this 
about three times. She couldn’t care for the people around her – not 
that I consider her actions as immoral, but what I found interesting was her 
practice of space. She was clearly unaffected by the senior citizens around, 
by the crowds around. The crowds were also not bothered about her. And 
that’s the jolly part of Nariman Point – nobody in the crowd is here to 
keep a watch on anyone else. Each one is a free individual here. As against 
this, you have the surveillance and brigades of morality at Bandra. Watchmen 
and guards constantly do the rounds at the sea faces at Bandra because 
residents complain that they are ‘disturbed’ by the kissing and physical 
intimacies of young things who come to the sea face! (‘Heart Attacks – 
an Alternative Perspective’ will probably be the title of my next 
venture!)
What is also interesting about college romance and especially in today’s 
times is that at the seafront, there is no concept of pace of time for the 
couples. It is about being here and having a good time sans restrictions and 
social mores. The concept and practice of time for the young professionals, 
especially those who are cutting college and getting into jobs and 
professions is that of pace of time. The pace at work, office and beyond is 
rushed, stressed and suffocating. To get relief from this pace is the 
concept and practice of parties where time takes on a different guise. I 
believe parties are about consumption of time, an economy based on boredom. 
I am a bit hesitant, but I guess I should just say this that the practice of 
time at the sea face is not about consumption. It is distinctly different. 
It is very closely connected with the notion of space and by space I mean a 
widening and expanding space, not a shrinking space (Caution: read not space 
in physical terms here).

Jogging: Today I watched the old and mid-life crisis facing joggers. Their 
faces were pensive and stressed. I think jogging is a stress reliving 
activity. I am not sure whether jogging is a matter of habit, but it seems 
to me that people get into cycles of jogging – cycles of health trips, 
business trips, fashion and fad trips, etc.
If you watch carefully, most people jogging and walking are actually talking 
to themselves in their minds. Watch out for the grimaces, the facial 
expressions – there is a wide variety of them.

Old Man’s Romance and Senior Citizens’ Meetings: Today I caught a brief 
glimpse into old couples’ romance at Nariman Point. Now, this romance is 
of types and varieties. One of the couples was sitting opposite me. The old 
woman took out an apple and broke it into halves. She gave one half to the 
old man and nibbled away at the other herself. Both of them looked 
affectionately at each other as they talking, eating and enjoying the breeze 
which had begun to blow by now. Another was a senior citizen couple. They 
were Gujarati and seemed like regular walkers along the sea face. Between 
themselves, they were discussing the state of affairs with respect to their 
everyday lives. A car halted at the road and a plush elderly woman who had a 
slight walking disability came and joined them. She bought her own chair and 
this clearly seemed like the trio’s meeting place. The old Gujarati ben 
(sister) and the plush lady got chatting while the old man put his attention 
to the more mundane outside and quipped into the conversation in between.

Seafront Sexuality – Mirrors and Angles: Today we shall talk a little bit 
about eunuchs. They have a sense of smell and they know when exactly to come 
out. Two eunuchs began to do the rounds of the plinth. They always target 
couples. This time, one of them lay beside the boy and refused to get up 
until the couple gave them something and the couple finally gave in! 
Normally, the men from the couples resist to patronize eunuchs while females 
think it is auspicious to give something lest the eunuchs curse and this 
leads to the break-up of relationships. In this sense, young nubile girls in 
fresh romance are very superstitious. I have yet to see how people receive 
eunuchs and transvestites here at Nariman Point given the current trends of 
gender plurality and New Age Bollywood. Hope to come back to this at some 
point soon!

Old Man Jockey: was here again today. He is definitely a regular. This 
evening, he was walking with the usual gait. He stopped and stared at me and 
shouted out loud, ‘Hullo!’ Embarrassed, I quickly dug my eyes into my 
notebook. He went ahead.

Evening Wears On and As Darkness Cometh: The crowd increases in intensity as 
the sun sets and the sky wears a cloak of black (no diamonds here – 
planetary stars are a rarity, we have Bollywood stars instead!). These days, 
the sun sets early and evening wears on soon and crowds throng more and more 
at Nariman Point. Have to watch what happens in the darkness!

Highlight of the Day: Old man with earplugs. This time, the earplugs were 
the ‘hearing aid’, not the hands free. I am sharpening my eyes!

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