The Urban Experience

Urban Experience... As part of Partial Submission for Theory of Design Semester III Urban Design Course....

Ahmedabad... 19th September 20008

My tryst with Mumbai lasted for 3 years cumulatively. During this I stayed and worked in different parts of city. I always liked Mumbai not because of its crowd but because no body matters to any body. It’s the city of achievement, Place to get recognized, Place of Opportunity.

Not every one succeeds but majority of people are found chasing their dreams and live with hope till end. It’s never to give up attitude of the people in the city that makes it a place to live. It’s rightly said ‘in Mumbai you may not sleep empty stomach but to find a place to sleep is …..Difficult’..

But in spite of being aware of this fact thousands of people keep coming to Mumbai.. And what brings to Mumbai with them is diversity.

The best place to experience this diversity is Colaba, South of Mumbai. It is one of the liveliest desired places to be in Mumbai. This place stays alive through out the day. I stayed at Colaba for two years and I religiously strolled through this place every day. The day in Colaba would start by thousands of people pouring in from entire Mumbai for work, shop, study and entertain. The stretch which I would like to talk about is from Regal Cinema till Theo brome Café and then toward Gate Way Promenade end, starting from Radio Club to Gate Way of India and then back to Regal Cinema Square.

5.30 Am to 11.00 AM

This Place wears different character in different parts of the day. The Day stars with domestic workers, shop workers, Vendors and office going people arriving at Colaba few via Church Gate and Few in Cabs and Few in their Swanky cars and branded clothes. Even though they are from different walks of life they have one thing in common that’s ‘hurry’ on their faces. Every on is in maddening rush, to reach their destination. And they do it all five days, few unfortunate one does it six times a day.

11.00 AM to 7.00 PM

This is the time to shops on Colaba Cause way to open up for business. They hardly see customer till 12.00 PM but by this time we have informal shopping opening up under the promenade in front of the branded show rooms. It is the best place to buy in fashion clothes, jewellery’s, sunglasses, magazines and every thing on this earth. It is famously said you ask for moon and Mumbaikar would have it to sell it to you. And this can be aptly said for the Kerelaite who storm this street. Every one who’s, who of Mumbai has bought some thing or the other from this place. This place is majorly crowded by foreigners by this time and college students.

What you can not miss is the beautiful girls, all fashion statement on street in one go, and fragrances of expensive colognes and perfumes mixed with stinging sweating bodies. You need not be fortunate to walk/ shop/ eat with celebrity on this street.

In between these hours of shopping and roaming activity of foreigners, the lunch break of office people adds on more layers to it. By this time this office goers are pretty relaxed as either they have punched their entry or have signed their musters and don’t have desire to rush back.

And again by 5.00 PM till late 8.30 PM its maddening crowd on both ways. People retuning to their places rushing towards Church Gate station and others coming in huge numbers to spent their evening at Gateway Promenade, Few to shop, few to enjoy the place, few to theatre, few to eat( as it has got the finest places to eat, drink and party) and few for flesh and drug trading.

8.30 PM Till Late Night

This is the time when the shoppers are in rush to grab things and rush for movie or to eat. But the different shades of this place can be observed with all type of illegal activity happening in front of naked eyes, where you are witness to it but you fail even to have air of it. In middle of the entire maddening crowd you have pimps, drug peddlers, prostitutes, pick pocketer’s, criminals and people making fake passports for foreign tourist. This entire people are part of crowd. The best places to locate them is in Café Mondegar and Café Leopold, few gangsters would be at Bade Miyan, best eatery joint behind Taj Hotel. What surprises you is where do the flesh trading happens, where do the drug peddler sale drugs. To your surprise they are around you, near you, one lane away. You enter the narrow lanes of famous hotels on to Merry Weather Street and you end up in Brothels. You take a turn for Taj Hotel and you have drug peddlers to sale you your choice. And when this all is happening you want to know where the police would be. And there they are bang opposite the Café Leopold. You can not miss them, they are also part of crowd but they have brilliant ignorant eyes to over look these activities.

And looking for time you realise its 11.00 PM time to go back to sleep, but place is still young and seems to have just started, struggling in your mind whether to go back or to hang on for more you would be stoped by fancy car, wind shield moving down asking you ” Way to Poly Easter”, ” Way to Insomnia”, ” Way to Red light” or ”Way to Bade Miya or Ayub’s”, This are the most visited places in Colaba. And If you thing only this are the people forming the place here after , then you are wrong as Taj Hotel is hosting a celebrity party, where who is who of Mumbai is invited, Inidgo is hosing party of Bollywood Celebrity, and Radio Club has to host rich and elite of Mumbai. What you can not ignore to see and feel empathy is the migrants with their small hungry kids sleeping in promenade, whose food and donated money to them is take away by their drug addict father, a differently abled asking for alms, taxi walas waiting last show of regal to end, few waiting for Discothèque to close for the day.

At 2.00 AM as police intertwine all the pubs would be closed, party’s would end, and all the celebrities would come down at Promenade looking at the roaring or calm sea, sipping the 3 rupee cahi from the vendor selling on promenade, buying ‘butta’ from street, their grim faces which were almost happiest on earth, a while ago, speaking volumes out their heart, and finally police evacuating the promenade till late 4.00 AM in the morning. The taxi starts speeding up against the calm night, back to their business charging people back home.

And if you think city have slept, then its time for flesh trading victims to return to their homes by the first train of morning. That’s 4.30 AM in the morning. And then again it’s the same routine as day has al eady begun in the sky, WHEN HAS THIS PLACE (COLABA) SLEPT THEN?

Being a witness to all these episodes of Colaba, its an true urban experience to have afresh in mind in the city that never sleeps.