[Reader-list] To be continued...

[kaiwan mehta]

Hi 
Mailing my last posting, it is with great thanks to Sarai and all
those who have helped me and supported my work and ideas in many ways.
Thanks!

8th and Final Posting

In the past 7 postings I enjoyed every interaction I had with the
locality of Bhuleshwar that I was studying. In my attempt to construct
and represent the history of a locality in this city I tried various
modes and methods and was successfully able to pick up many strands in
this project. From interacting with families and sweepers to keen
observation of decoration and materials of buildings to conducting
studio exercises and workshops the experience has been revealing at
all points.

Here there are various snap shots of some ideas that will go on with
my research in the near future.

In this last posting I wish to end with the brief story of a man who
used this area to launch the premier publishing house in Bombay and
preached through practice ideas like widow remarriage and voiced
against caste practices. A devout and well lettered man, he came to
Bombay escaping extreme poverty in his village in Madhya Pradesh. He
came to the city with his siblings and Rs 10 and used his skill at
writing and Jain theology to find a job and patronage. He began as a
clerk in the office of the Mumbai Panthi Digambar Jain Sabha. He
worked for Jain Mitra, a jain magazine in the 1880s and later edited
another radical Jain magazine established by him, called the Jain
Hiteshi, a monthly. He encounters Abraham Lincoln's Liberty,
translates it into Hindi and with this establishes the publishing
house – Hindi Granth Karyalaya, which is housed in Hirabaug at C P
Tank. Hirabaug was a Jain dharamshala designed in the gothic style.
Pandit Nathuram Premi is a name still known, although not so
popularly. He saw the potential of the Hindi language and worked to
giving it a status in the literary world. He translated or published
Hindi translations of various works from Bengali literature.
Premchand's biography by his son Amrit Rai, translated into English by
Harish Trivedi mentions Premiji twice. One instance mentions where
Premchand and Premiji travel from Bombay to Madras for a convention of
the Hindi Prachar Sabha. This connection between Premiji and Premchand
was mentioned to me by Premiji's great grandson Manish who mentioned
how Premchand during his disappointing stay in Bombay lived in the
small room home of Premiji. However the chapter on Premchand's stay in
Bombay, in the biography has no mention of Premiji, but a passing
remark to 'staying as a guest with a friend'. Going on to mention how
he was looking for a house in Bombay and the available rates were Rs
50 for a three room flat and Rs 75 for five.

Premiji's wide popularity and respect among scholars of Jainism and
Hindi litterateurs is obvious from a commemoration volume released for
Premiji. I have just managed to lay my hands on this volume and a copy
of Jain Hiteshi. Both in Gujarati, will need me to translate them.
(However the rains have prevented me from getting them Xeroxed and the
volumes being old are tattered and also partly infected so reading
them directly is not a good idea. I am hoping they will throw more
light on the cultural and political scenario of Bhuleshwar area.)

In my continuing study of the area, there are some structural changes
entering into the area. A rule for cess buildings called 33/7 allows
for old dilapidated buildings to be demolished and be replaced by high
rises on gifted TDR. Besides this the economic demographics are also
changing, e.g. Jain diamond merchants are taking over many parts for
commercial purposes, displacing some of the other Gujarati and
Mahrashtrian middle class residents. Both these developments have
affected obviously the visual scenario in the area. Socially one is
trying to observe what changes are coming in. I visited a Jain temple
which is actually an old shrine expanded over. The new expansion that
envelops the older temple is evidently decorated with the mass
produced Jain temple motifs / aesthetics. Interestingly I noticed how
some mother goddess shrines on the old temple have been incorporated
into the Jain temple. On questioning their position in the Jain
pantheon of gods, a worshipper (whom I know and he is also
knowledgeable on religious matters) was unable to answer and was a bit
startled by the question. Although my quick logic makes me believe
that like many mother goddesses associated with the area, these could
have been some local shrines, now incorporated into the Jain temple.
The temples, with their trustee structure and investment patterns, are
important sites to study some of the social changes affecting the
area.

Generally as you walk the area one sees various high rises - just
completed or yet in construction. Their aesthetics is something to
ponder over. In their attempt sometimes to be 'in a heritage area'
they pick up any element the architect assumes to be located 'in
heritage' and applies it to a building. Most of these elements so
plastic in form or colour and often blown up in proportion (to match
the gigantic aesthetics of the builder logic) assume a new look.
Disgusting to the nostalgic mind but interesting to see a new logic of
default. Actually only on a second look do you realize how a possibly
heritage element has changed to its present form. These claimants of
'heritage located (and respecting the same)' often become coloured and
crafted boxes as they rise beyond the third or fourth floor level.
They feel obliged to be heritage located on the lower stories and then
they try to announce their new and fashionable position. Trendy with
cut-outs and shapes coloured or carved in the concrete and plaster
surfaces. It could remind one of those sci-fi movies where some
mutants have started living with a striking monstrous presence amongst
the earlier species. If you remember some of the earlier postings, the
existing species today were mutants themselves once.

Well this last posting talks in brief of some of the observations I
plan to study and document as my study will carry on beyond this
fellowship. This fellowship has been a great boon in setting me out on
various notes that will in the near future get collated into a
comprehensive account. I have just initiated an elective programme on
the subject at the architecture college I teach and that will also
take off from the studies done under the Sarai fellowship. This
fellowship has allowed me to experiment with my ideas, collect newer
ground information and do some essential base work and build a
foundation for the study to carry on.

Thanking Sarai and all those who have helped me and responded to the posts,

Kaiwan  


-- 
Kaiwan Mehta
Architect and Urban Reseracher

11/4, Kassinath Bldg. No. 2, Kassinath St., Tardeo, Mumbai 400034
022-2-494 3259 / 91-98205 56436