India has experienced unprecedented growth in the past one or two decades. However, “New India”, liberalized, globalized and “shining”, has yet to define its model and the values it embodies. Becoming a megapower, home to some of the wealthiest individuals and companies in the world, cannot be an end in itself. If the “new” in “New India” is to mean anything then we have to make the effort to imagine what it could be. As of now the “new” seems to merely be about copying and supersizing the same old economic wisdoms that have produced unsustainable, polarized and crisis prone regimes in the West.

The age structure of India, where nearly 50% of the population is under 24 years old makes it clear that the aspirations and decisions of the youth will shape the country’s future in dramatic ways. In these times of transition when India is redefining itself, and asserting its newfound position in the world, we must look at ourselves anew, drawing as much from our roots as our collective imagination.

Youth are leaving villages and moving to the city –sometimes coming back with new means and ambitions; in the city the same youth gets absorbed as workforce in the booming private sector, where they seek to climb the economic and social ladder. Youth wants it all, here and now, fast and furious. They want what they perceive as Western standards for themselves. They are aware of their country’s problems, and either feel contempt and a need to run away. Or they want to make a change for themselves from within the system.

What they often forget in the process is the tremendous potential that lies deep in the civilization they are part of. Indigenous systems in homegrown villages and neighbourhoods for instance, which have survived multiple layers of colonization, modernization and globalization, could be a source of inspiration for new development principles altogether.

The development we are thinking of is based on small, thoughtful, sustainable solutions, rather than huge, “time changing”, “mega” stream of thinking; on individuals and communities, rather than corporations, departments and agencies. It is the kind of development that could ensure a bountiful of resources for generations to come. It is the kind of development that takes as its measure individual happiness rather than the GDP of the country.

Because we seem to have left them behind as we rushed for the gold, it has becomes necessary to expose these persistent and widespread (yet undermined and threatened) systems all over again. This is why we are committed to a long enduring search for the buried organizational structures that still follow common-sensesical economy principles, and which are connected human needs and mother earth’s means. We do this by documenting the lifestyle and architecture of existing indigenous villages. We propose to go back to the village and explore its intense and simple livelihood principles. Based on our observation, we brainstorm on the best way to take some of these principles to scale in their own small ways.

The research program called “The Umbilical Connection” is a first step in this direction. For a month we will research and document the village of Murbad near Dahanu (a few hours from Mumbai), and speculate on the future the village and on the relationship between the village and urbanization. This program is intended as a discovery more than as a teaching experience. The conductors of the workshop (Design Jatra) are themselves not equipped with full knowledge of the village’s systems. We commit ourselves to this research along with the participants and villagers. We therefore do not have a preset agenda and objective. We hope to engage with the village, and hope to become ourselves actors in its development.

The workshop starts with a detailed documentation of sustainable local practices, which enrich the life of the village. The second step is a documentation of two structures in the village, which are built according to different construction principles. The third step is to use the knowledge gathered in the first and the second steps to co-produce with the villagers a twenty-year vision for the village. The fourth and the final step is set our vision in motion. It can be anything from a landscape element, to an architectural intervention, to planting a tree, or organizing a small exhibition.

The workshop is open to anyone who wishes to commit to the journey we expect to begin. This means developing a deep relationship with the village of Murbad, and thus it will enable the participant to become a part of the village now and in the future.

The workshop is be held from 1st of May to 5th of June. It is a come in and out workshop which means that participants can join the workshop at whichever stage they want. However, we would really prefer that participants join with the journey for as long as possible and as far as possible.

For more information about the workshop, contact Shardul Patil via this page.

Shardul Patil is a student at Academy of Architecture in Mumbai and a member of URBZ. Pratik Dhanmer, a practicing architect and fellow member of URBZ is a co-organizer of the workshop and co-author of this post.

Just back from the caves and rock-cut temples of Ajanta and Ellora.

After getting off from the train at VT, we walked down to Fort, past the Hermes and Louboutin windows, to a café for breakfast before taking a taxi home.

At home, I caught up on my weekly dose of the MINT lounge – a weekend newspaper insert – this Saturday’s lounge was – it so happens – “the luxury issue”.

What I saw in the lounge, or even the window dressings at the Hermes or Louboutin flagships felt lame, somewhat dead – after what I saw this weekend at Ajanta & Ellora!

The sensuality, sexuality and style oozing out of those rocks were mind-blowing! Those guys had oomph that isn’t easily found these days. The human form was celebrated, not starved.

Ajanta with its drop-dead frescoes – from some 2500 years ago was like a fashion-sutra in stone – documenting jewellery, accessories, make-up, hairstyles and costumes – while capturing the narratives of the many lives of Buddha.

Ellora had fantastic stone sculptures – entire hills carved into temple complexes and monasteries – created by the human brain with super-advanced visualization techniques that even the most sophisticated present day software cannot duplicate.

It looked like super large format 3D printing that may become possible a few decades from now, except that this was from the 5th-7th century – done entirely by hand.

Being back at my desk on a computer feels quite the anti-climax.

Susmita Mohanty is a Mumbai based spaceship designer and URBZ’s ambassador to the Universe. Click here for more photos of Ajanta & Ellora.

Quite a few architects and urban designers have cracked their heads on the urban phenomenon that Mumbai represents. What kind of logic keeps this big, bad city running despite all odds? How exactly does its urban fabric reflect the extreme disparities that have become inexorably attached to the city’s image? What does the mutation of colonial Bombay into global Mumbai mean for architectural forms and public life?

Rahul Mehrotra’s static vs. kinetic city story is one of the most compelling attempts at providing a general understanding of the dynamics and tensions at work in the making and perpetuating of Mumbai’s urbanism. According to him, the static is the official city of built forms, framed by monumental structures, birthed and nourished by broadly premodernist and modernist impulses. Sharing space, often unacknowledged and even unseen, but nevertheless very much present and active is the kinetic city, energized by the impulse of everyday human presence and activity, spilling over streets and public spaces, composed of transactions and the bazaar ethos, especially by resource and capital deprived inhabitants.

He accurately points out that Mumbai’s history and future are unimaginable without the dense trading culture and human interactions that spill in and out of its bustling streets and worn out habitats. Likewise, his critique of rigid notions of architectural heritage and urban futures that defend built space over lived space, is spot on. Anybody who comes to Mumbai and connects with its incredible street life, wrapped around and between its mongrelized Gothic colonial or post-colonial structures can immediately connect to the ideal types of the static and the kinetic city.

Mehrotra goes on to elaborate why Mumbai is essentially a kinetic city which cannot be tamed or reigned in by the static city. He does not fully buy into the standard dichotomization of the city into formal and informal sectors, which can mistakenly be overlapped onto his static-kinetic concepts. Instead, his perspective transforms public architecture into a sophisticated set of practices that involve a layered understanding of architectural heritage. He attributes a more creative role to intangible moments of public life like festivals and street economies. The transformation of the Kala Ghoda art district in Mumbai is a successful tribute to his framework.  It is to his credit as an architect that he uses imagination and a sense of history to co-produce a public project of this nature without investing in another expensive monument to celebrate existing ones.

Sadly, the concept of the kinetic city is threatened by the malaise of over-interpretation. Sometimes instigated by Mehrotra’s own hurried words. For example, it is easy to misread his observations that all structures of the kinetic city are made of temporary and recycled materials or that their limited but productive lifespan is connected to makeshift building techniques. This encourages a tendency to misunderstand some neighbourhoods in Mumbai as being disposable because of a surface reading of their dynamics. They seem to resemble the structures that Mehrotra is describing. We think that it would probably be wise not to let Mehrotra’s slippery concept slide over the blurry boundaries of South Mumbai, to become a guiding principle to understand habitats such as Mumbai’s so-called slums.

Read the full text on airoots/eirut

This post is the first a of series of short essays written by participants of the Homegrown Neighbourhoods Workshop, which took place in January 2013 at the Institute of Urbanology.

Nestled on the hillocks in the eastern suburbs of Mumbai, Amrutnagar, Ghatkopar paints a figurative picture of the city; where affordable housing is scarce but people have tweaked the system and the land to achieve the best possible results in the given circumstances. The airborne traveler gasps at the sight welcoming the landing craft. The favelas of Rio come to mind, associated as they are with images of poverty and violence. They seem to say “welcome to Slumbai!”

The view from the plane doesn’t do justice to the pertinent housing typology devised by the locals. The housing in this hilly terrain embraces the topology. The rocks dug from the hill are used to build the foundation of the houses and the retaining wall that prevents landslides. The natural slope helps with drainage. Porches acting as public corridors are reminiscent of the quintessentially Bombay “chawl” typology. All houses are oriented in the east-west direction for maximum light and wind. Most of them are only ground floor structure, which allows everyone to enjoy one of the best views of the city. From the hilltop one can see planes landing into Mumbai airport. Catherine Boo may have reported what she saw “behind the beautiful forevers”. This is above.

The homes on the hill are said to be illegally constructed, yet occupancy rights in the city are often more a political question than a legal one. The area we visited was a relatively small 13.5 acres hill called Ramnagar, part of the larger settlement Amrutnagar. With a population of 12,000 locals, this Marathi speaking population is the vote bank of the rapidly rising political party ‘Maharastra Navnirman Sena’ (MNS) which promises to be the guardian angel of the Marathi Manoos. It was previously dominated by the Shiv Sena, the original sentinels of the Maharashtrian community. However, there are a good number of people from other communities as well and the residents are quick to point out that people of all denominations and ethnicity reside here. The locals who have no expectation from the governing bodies try their level best to be in the good books of the local political party workers, as they fear demolition on a daily basis. The cost of constructing a house is very high, due to the hilly terrain and residents usually spend their annual income on a basic house with four walls and a roof.

An estimated 4000 houses are built on and around this hillock and almost all of them are ‘pukka’ houses. 2000 are above the drainage line and the remaining 2000 below. Since the settlement emerged before 1995, it is liable for the SRA scheme and several redevelopment projects are an ongoing feature in the area. One graphical representation of the mandatory 269 sq feet redeveloped flat by the local builder shows a flat screen TV, contemporary furniture and modern art on the walls depicting a certain conception of what urban life should be about. The politician-builder nexus is well known. A SRA scheme can be force d upon anyone and residents are aware that the only way for them to get a legitimate house in the near future is their own hard work and destiny.

An interesting feature of this settlement is its road hierarchy. With no vehicles able to go up the steps of the hill, the only mode of transport is human and animal. The hilltop crest has several donkeys grazing, ready for whatever work may come up. Every house has a patio facing the city which acts as internal street whereas the steps winding down the hill act as the main road. Constructing a house uphill demands huge labour charges. A minimum 60 bags of cement, 30 bags of sand and 5000 bricks needs to be carried on foot. The labourer charges Rs 100-150 per bag as transport fee which doubles the cost, and a basic house costs around Rs 1.5 lacs. The cost of construction is higher because of use of relatively expensive materials and one extra floor as loft. The loft is usually rented to outsiders for Rs 2000/- a month. The cost of buying a 10 x15 sq ft house is around Rs 15-20 lacs. The local labourers called mistris who are experienced artisans in this field and usually inhabitants of the neighbourhood, are directly hired on daily wage basis for construction which usually last 15-20 days. The houses downhill are higher, have a larger footprint and are more ornate.

The settlement has several temples, public squares and courts, social mandals and groups on its way up and a bustling commercial street at the foothill. Commercial enterprises thrive mostly downhill, as goods transport is tedious and expensive uphill. However economic activities take place in homes as well. The dominant community which has largely migrated from the Malvan regions around Goa, work outside in the city. Most men do office jobs like data entry, peon, clerk or work in private security agencies. Women are mostly housewives and some of them work as part time maids in the neighbourhood buildings. They mostly wash utensils in various houses. A few homes do economic work like assembling parts for some manufacturing activity or the other or simply providing service at the village level. The average male income is Rs 7000-10000 whereas women earn Rs 2000 per month as maids. The area doesn’t function as intensively as the tool house clusters of some other settlements in Mumbai. They pay a monthly rental of Rs 170-220/- to an NGO for 25 minutes of daily water supply, spend around Rs 200/month on mobile phones, Rs 350/month on cable TV connection and some even spend Rs 200 on monthly internet services.

An interesting learning from Amrutnagar is the way people have organized themselves, developed construction technology and housing typologies without help from outside and how they go out on their own and innovate systems to make their life easier. There is a real sense of vernacular urbanism here. Construction techniques in Amrutnagar are unlike any parts of the city that we have visited. They are suited to meet local needs and means. Even without security of tenure and with very limited servicing by civic authorities, citizens have managed to look after themselves and their sheltering needs fairly well.

Sketches by Shardul Patil @urbz

As we climbed to the summit of the hillock, beyond the settlement, we found the landscape and atmosphere becoming gradually more relaxing. People sitting outside their homes, enjoying the view and the breeze, firmly committed to the quality of life they were living. They claimed there were no mosquitoes, since water slides away leaving no stagnant pools around. They would not want to go anywhere else.

A temple built in 1957 dedicated to Khandoba looms over the hill. The sleepy priest-guru-founder lounges around a charpai. He used to be a mechanical superintendent at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, turned to spirituality at a young age and built the temple with his hands. A labyrinthine structure with a maze leading to smaller shrines, leads you to the other end of the complex and into a landscape that is anachronistic to everything else we had seen. Lush green grass, pigs and donkeys loitering around. A pathway that seemed to lead to dense foliage, with the promise of a forest adventure.

We land up at the other end, past a hidden cricket field known only to the local kids, the view of a shooting range and a stone quarry, walk through the foliage politely turning away from stray people going to the open-air toilet (no smell – thanks to the pigs) and come to a tarred road and a helipad! Beyond the trees lies a gate and behind that the ‘illegal’ neighbourhood of Hirandanai Gardens can be seen. A city built on subsidized land meant for the poor, with no threat of any demolishing of any kind facing its destiny.

From the point of view of Dinesh, the boy taking a stroll with us, the view from the hill helps him gain perspective on life. Somehow the view, the peace, the trees remind him that a city can potentially provide you with all kinds of habitats. He knows it is a luxury to be able to walk up to a place like this. Right now it instigates him to return to his native village in Benares, so reminiscent is it of a memory he has from there. In minutes though, as he trundles down, he is absorbed into the bustle of the neighbourhood. He points to his father’s tailoring shop and the direction of his college. Back in another world. He is living in a transit camp now. An SRA tower is coming up to relocate his family. Will he stay on? Will he go back? As long as choices remain, all possibilities exist. Somehow one gets the feeling, as the neighbourhood transforms into tall vertical buildings, that the choices which enrich his simple life are diminishing, and diminishing too fast.

Dinesh

More photos and sketches here.

This article was written by Megha Gupta with contributions by Shardul Patil, Rahul Srivastava and Matias Echanove

View Religious Sites in Dharavi in a larger map

There are countless shrines, temples and tiny votive sites throughout Dharavi. Given that the largest part of this neighbourhood was developed relatively recently (in the late nineteenth century and after the 1950s), it provides a clear model from which to chart out how temples and other religious structures are created in 20th century Indian society. Furthermore, the dense development patterns and continual migration of residents reveal how religious sites function in unplanned and ethnically diverse urban neighbourhoods.

This preliminary research is the result of 15 days of mapping, interviewing and cataloguing religious sites from one end of Dharavi to the other. It was conducted with URBZ research associate Shyam Kayle and myself. There are clearly limitations in this work, including the predominance of Hindu temples, and the lack of in-depth social and historical investigation. However, the results are very intriguing and call for more concerted efforts to be made in telling the stories of the religious sites in this unique area.

I have highlighted certain themes that emerged from my time in Dharavi any of which could become the basis for more detailed study.

The ethnic mosaic of Dharavi

Sunni Jama Masjid

Choosing which deity to honour with a temple is not a straightforward process. There are a variety of reasons that a particular deity is selected including: the occurrence of a miracle associated with that god; a stone or other physical feature that resembles that god; a specific tree or plant associated with a god in the vicinity; the hometown ties of the residents; or simply because the residents wanted a temple and had to choose a god to dedicate it to. It seems that more often than not the reason a specific deity is chosen is based on the ethnicity or background of the local residents: i.e. the selection of a god associated with a distant home village. However, sometimes a deity is chosen simply because local residents have a fondness for him or her irrespective of their specific geo-cultural background.

The rise in popularity of certain deities at the expense of others is clearly displayed in the choice of gods in Dharavi’s temples. Older areas tend to have more obscure and caste specific or community specific gods featured in their temples while newer Hindu religious sites in Dharavi tend to have more famous and popular deities enshrined such as Sai Baba and Hanuman.

The large Muslim community in Dharavi is well represented by mosques, which are evenly distributed across the neighbourhood. Like their Hindu counterparts, these religious sites range in size from small storefronts to large compounds. The oldest mosque in Dharavi, is the Sunni Jama Masjid on the Dharavi main road. There are also two darghas in Dharavi at either end of the neighbourhood. These small shrines are not particularly ornate, nor do they appear to be highly patronized but little else was discovered about them, making studying the stories behind the Darghas of Dharavi an important part of a future research.

Christian churches are concentrated in the Koliwada area of Dharavi. The Kolis, a community of fishermen who are the original inhabitants of the area, have had a long relationship with Catholicism dating back from their first encounters with Portuguese colonizers. Religious sites in the Koliwada area have a characteristically Indian flavour with small shrines dedicated to the virgin Mary that are virtually indistinguishable from Hindu religious sites in other areas. The area has its share of large churches and small shrines as well as numerous small Christian worship spaces that exist inside of the homes of local residents. These informal religious spaces have no signage or indication of their dual purposes.

Temples and bureaucracy

Most, but not all, temples in Dharavi are managed by a ‘society (1).’ These groups are responsible for founding, upkeep, maintenance and security of a local temple or shrine. A society is usually made up of local devotees who contribute funds and manage the temple. The borders of these ‘societies’ are not clearly defined, nor are they of regular size – while one society might have hundreds or thousands of members from a large area, another might consist of only a few houses on a small alley. Just as the design and the deity of a temple tells a story of the groups who live in the neighbourhood, the ethnic make-up of local temple societies reflect the patterns of migration into an area.

The creation of a society to manage a temple has numerous purposes including, eliminating the appearance that a temple is an “income generator” since the funds are communally controlled as well as providing collective governance over the public space belonging to temple. ‘Societies’ also serve as a steering body to guide the development of the religious spaces they govern, if funds and space are available they might begin to plan for larger and more opulent structures. The decision to create a society is something that appears to arise among inhabitants in previously vacant spaces. If a new resident was to move into the area, they are likely to join one of the pre-existing local societies.

Religious structures in unplanned areas such as Dharavi have a complicated relationship with government bureaucracy; some temples have been registered with the government, while others remain unregistered (2). The benefit of registration is primarily that the structure cannot be demolished without the permission of the temple’s governing body. Without registration a road widening or approved development scheme could mean the summary destruction of a temple or shrine. However, there are downsides to registration which keep many religious structures from doing so: registrations requires certain organizational and financial requirements to be met which can be onerous and restrictive. Because of this, many temples do not register unless it is absolutely necessary for example, when they are located on major roads where redevelopment is a threat.

(Right: Virgin mary Statue in Koliwada)

Temples and urban space

Shri Dhareswara Shiv Mandir

Demolition and movement: As stated above, temple buildings that have been registered with the government cannot be demolished without permission. However, when a new development that will result in the destruction of a temple structure is proposed, a deal is often struck between the local ‘society’ and the developer; wherein the developer builds a new space for the deity and the idol is moved from its old location. The density of religious structures and continuing redevelopment in Dharavi have made the temple relocation and destruction a constant process. There are reports of temples being constructed in a deliberate attempt to complicate and stifle development. However, I did not encounter this phenomenon during my research.

Demolition of temples is further complicated by tales of disease and death befalling those that demolish temples forcefully. At least two temples are said to have caused the death or illness of the construction workers who attempted to destroy them. After these curses were recognized, deities were moved and new spaces offered.

Surrounding space: Some temples in Dharavi are surrounded by what amounts to a relatively large amount of open space for such a dense neighbourhood. These spaces are used for both religious and secular activities. They become the neighbourhood square for those that live around them, areas where children play and people park their cars or dry papadams in the sun. However, during religious festivals, these spaces are taken over for meals, accommodation for devotees and congregational spaces. This communal space is limited to the larger temples that were established early on in the settlement of the area or the temples that have been newly rebuilt in high-rise housing. Temples or shrines that did not develop as quickly or as early can never hope to have this space and this issue will constrain their expansion.

Informal development processes ‘regulate’ most of the construction in Dharavi and temples play an important role in preserving and expanding control of space. Religious sites can be used to ensure that land is left largely undeveloped with communal or even personal control. ‘Claiming’ a section of land as temple property, complicates if not halts, encroachments by neighbours or newcomers. Designated religious space represents one of the only means of justifying the retention of open space given the density and lack of regulation found in Dharavi.

Age: There is a lot of confusion about the exact age of the Hindu temples in Dharavi. This lies in the willingness to claim that religious structures are as old as the hills because it increases the impression of holiness, furthermore, while the structures might have been rebuilt the idol itself may be much older, having come from a previous temple. The distinction between the age of the society and the idol and that of the structure in its current form and location in the neighbourhood is an important one when discussing age.  For example, most of the structures appear to be fairly new, built in the  last 50 years, however, there are some temples in Koliwada that date from the mid 1700’s.

Temples and social emancipation

Cities have long been identified as sites where individuals are able to find freedom from the prejudices and social constraints of village life. The population of Dharavi is largely made up of lower caste Hindus, many of whom were refused entry into temples in their villages. Migrants who arrived in Dharavi found a place with almost no upper caste communities and therefore no one to regulate who could, or could not, worship a particular deity. As a result, previously marginalized castes began to build and enter temples without reprisal.

Bombay South Indian Adi-Dravida Mahajana Sang

The Bombay South Indian Adi-Dravida Mahajana Sang is an example of a society formed by ‘ex-untouchables’ who were emancipated from caste regulation in Dharavi. The society manages one of the largest temples in Dharavi. Originally, migrant workers arriving from South India began to settle in the area and worshiped a small idol that leaned against a tree. These workers began to plan for the construction of a proper temple-something that would never have been possible in their homelands. They felt free to do so in this community without a caste hierarchy. The temple they built is more than 100 years old, occupying a place of prominence in the neighbourhood.

Faced with similar circumstances, some low caste hindus in Dharavi took another route and became Buddhists. The Ambedkar Buddhist movement is focused in the south western area of Jasmine mills where there are a number of large Buddhist temples.

(1) (As stated earlier, my explorations of the religious sites in Dharavi focused largely on Hindu religious sites. My fantastic and knowledgeable translator and guide Shyam, a Hindu himself, had his own perceptions about photographing mosques and asking too many questions at other religious sites that he was not affiliated with. This skewed the distribution of faiths represented in my mapping and analysis.)

(2) The registration number can be seen often on the front sign of a temple.

Edward Birnbaum is an urban planner based in Toronto. He interned with URBZ in 2010