Sneha’s essay, “When a Familiar City Becomes a Eulogy of Loss,” appears in the Spring 2021 issue of Shenandoah and was edited by Editorial Fellow DW McKinney. Sneha, in collaboration with her father, Mr. Subramanian Swaminathan, a Sangam Literature scholar and independent researcher, has chosen to reflect on the past and present lives of Mumbai, India.
Sneha:
How we inhabit a space tells us not only about ourselves but of the place itself. When there is sparse attention to the natural world, there is misogyny, there is intolerance, and a shadowed subconscious. It affects the way we interact with each other. I’m writing about place but also about how people inhabit a place. I’m writing about Mumbai, the city where I was born and one-acquainted with for over two decades.
There is a specific politics associated with the personal, in both the macro and micro. The 90s Mumbai that I remember having grown up in is in stark contrast to the city I remember having flown out of. I do not romanticize the past. I’m aware of the pitfalls of doing so—especially as a woman who analyses the city spatially. What does it mean to occupy space in a modern metropolitan city in India? My essay reengages the prospect of spatial topography.
My last flashes of Mumbai are a stream of shimmering lights across familiar locales of the city from the international airport. When I looked at the suburban part of Mumbai, visible from a faintly smoggy corner of the airport, I recognized the places I had been to, those that were an integral part of my everyday life. To see Mumbai or any corner of it, one needs to find an isolated place—a place where not many assemble. However, as a woman living in a world where toxic masculinity exists, accessibility works through being a part of a semi-large or sparse crowd. There is no guarantee of safety in either.
The only time I could momentarily grasp and pause to reflect the vastness or space in Mumbai—where it felt like the city could hold all the people—was when descending over the bridge that came out all the way to Marine Drive. There, I saw that the sea had not changed in vastness but in smell and hue. The waters had become more alkaline.
Subramanian Swaminathan:
I moved to Mumbai, erstwhile Bombay, in 1979. The Bombay of my days was spacious with courteous, gentle, and helpful people. It also offered employment opportunities to people from all over the country. It was an important time for India’s history in the post-independence era. This shift from the villages to the city enabled citizens to create a diversity of culture, primarily through languages, food, and festivals.
In the late 70s until the mid-90s, Mumbai had few flyovers. Today, the city is dotted with flyovers. I have also witnessed the change in landscape. Where first there was only one airport, you find the place having been segregated into two separate airports for domestic and international passengers. The chawl system was an integral part of the interludes between the 60s and early 2000s in Mumbai. One would interact with a lot of people when living in a chawl. I have heard stories from friends about the camaraderie among those living in such property establishments.
We reckon with the idea of space in Mumbai; we rarely jostle with it. With progress, it is vital to ensure a sustainable approach for future generations. When traveling in a residential lane in Mumbai, you’ll have barely enough space to walk or drive because the lane is most likely crowded with parked cars. The question of space, I have come to realize, is not because of demographic transition but is rooted in a lack of holistic planning.
The textile mill factories and small-scale industries have either been shut down, have shifted location, or their scale of operation has dwindled. The lungs of our city is the Sanjay Gandhi National Park at Kandivali. We mourn the stoppage of Mithi River, as this has led the estuarine and marine ecosystems around it to collapse. The environmental damage is evident through all corners in the city. The hazardous conditions that have ensued as a result of the lack of care are visible.
I arrive from a tradition where I’ve learnt to worship forces of nature. Mumbai is growing in scale, in enormous skyline, while parts of the city continually become less green.