Present must meet the future

(From left) Enviromentalist Bittu Sahgal, educator and urban planner Hussain Indorewala, artist Sameer Kulavoor, TISS professor and author Shilpa Phadke, and founder-editor of The Wire Sidharth Bhatia PICS COURTESY/Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai

By the time yours truly was midway through moderating the panel discussion themed on The Futures of Mumbai, with expert speakers Hussain Indorewala, Sameer Kulavoor, and Shilpa Phadke, along with Professor Mustansir Dalvi, at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, the writing was on the wall, in bold letters. We desperately need a 360-degree action plan to resuscitate Mumbai's existence, and also maintain its health, given its precarious geographic location. Executable ideas and realistic solutions were flowing thick and fast among the panellists, so there was much to feel upbeat about despite the gloom and doom.

Earlier in the day, senior journalist and author, Sidharth Bhatia flagged things off in his keynote address by highlighting the human cost of Mumbai's development. He spelt out the contrast where developers, planners, and glossy ads propped up a future of swish townships modelled after Singapore or Dubai, while there was zero vision for its ordinary citizens who couldn't afford these multi-crore residences. Issues like the fact that 50 per cent of the city's population lived in slums, or were being relocated to wastelands and salt pans, were also dissected. However, amidst the harsh realities, Bhatia drew inspiration from its working-class heroes who offered hope and positivity.

Next up, it was environmentalist and climate change warrior Bittu Sahgal's turn to remind the audience of all of Mumbai's extraordinary biodiversity, including its resident dolphins, thousands of flamingos, its national park, and how it was our true equity over real estate. Sahgal explained how nature acts as a magical machine that naturally fixes and replenishes itself. He too, was his usual positive self, assuring all that it wasn't too late to prevent disaster; however, acts like destroying natural buffers like mangroves and salt pans had to stop immediately. He urged lawmakers to engage with the young to secure the city's future.

Educator and urban researcher Hussain Indorewala, while speculating about the real estate-development nexus, called it ‘The Great Indian Land Sale', and reiterated how the city had become a relentless construction site. He shared incisive data on the vacuum between affordability and reality. For example, the gap between the lower-income citizen and peak housing prices was so wide that it would take 150 years to own an apartment!

Using vignettes from his personal growth, and his exhibited works, Sameer Kulavoor, artist, printmaker, and visual storyteller, documented the changing canvas using art. The play with colour, elements, and details showed a lens on the shape-shifting that was taking place across Mumbai, in the name of development. He expressed confidence that younger minds, with their heightened use of technology, could preserve city markers and navigate this urban challenge.

Educationist and sociologist Shilpa Phadke took the nostalgia route, while accentuating the impact on gender and community as the city yo-yoed between ceaseless development, and shrinking spaces. Armed with comparative data spanning decades, she underlined how existing services like BEST were being compromised, and not given a shot in the arm, despite its positive track record as the OG form of public transport.

All these views stirred well into a melting pot of ideas at the panel discussion, putting the symposium's theme front and centre. It called for introspection and necessary, urgent action. Dalvi, professor of architecture and author, summarised the mood nicely by stressing on the eventuality of two Mumbais in existence - the original island city and the second one that was growing rapidly northward, and in ad-hoc fashion; their unique developmental challenges had to be addressed separately and soon, by the powers-that-be.

At the end of the day, the idea of discussing the ‘futures' of Mumbai was about reminding our policymakers that we deserve to be in a liveable, environmentally-conscious city with shared spaces and equal opportunities. Amidst the spread of logistically viable ideas, our lone regret was that while students, urban planners, and the cultural and heritage community were represented, the absence of lawmakers was noticeable. It could have been a golden opportunity to break bread with Mumbai's solution-finders, who, after all, are its voices and its stakeholders in the shaping of this city.

mid-day's Features Editor Fiona Fernandez relishes the city's sights, sounds, smells and stones...wherever the ink and the inclination takes her. She tweets @bombayana
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.