Such a Mumbaikar: Meet this city-based history buff who wears many hats

A map made by Sagar Srivastava when he was seven years old

The city is on the brink of rain when we meet Sagar Srivastava in Juhu. Shy at first, Srivastava is quick to extend a hand to shake. His spectacles communicate a certain seriousness, which quickly fades away once we get talking.

Other than spectacles, Srivastava is a wearer of many hats - filmmaker by day, map maker by night, writer by morning, film researcher by evening, and a history buff always.

His story begins in 1990s Bombay, when he was growing up in Gokuldham in Goregaon East, "not to be confused with the Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah society," he jokingly clarifies. He remembers a time when horses would come around the neighbourhood for a ride. "There was much less pollution, much less traffic, and much more greenery," the 36-year-old reminiscences, "It's beyond repair now."

His nanighar (maternal home) in Varanasi, was the beginning of a long love affair with filmmaking. Right outside his house was a wall of film posters. "Now neither my nanighar exists, nor does that wall. Some mall has come up there. But memories exists."

"My family had the typical dream for me - engineering." And so Srivastava made his way to Bengaluru. Somehow, he finished the four years.

Meanwhile, he'd just heard of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune. "So I went there, and the security guard judged me instantly because I was extremely skinny. He assumed I had come for the acting entrance exam and advised my father to feed me properly because I wouldn't survive otherwise," Srivastava laughs.

A more recent map-making endeavour

As fate would have it though, Srivastava never made it to FTII. "My parents insisted that I finish engineering first," he says, "According to them, filmmaking was just a phase that would eventually pass." He tried a couple of engineering jobs. But then, enough was enough, and soon, he found himself applying to foreign universities.

In 2013, Srivastava would find a home in Bournemouth University in England, "back with the good old oppressor," he jokes. "Bournemouth is a beautiful coastal town," he remembers. As someone who grew up in the heart of Bollywood, Srivastava knew filmmaking to be elaborate sets and dance numbers. "I realised how shallow my understanding of filmmaking actually was.

Then people showed me my place," he says, "They introduced me to filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, and James Cameron."

Even as he learnt about Western filmmakers, he was shocked to see how little they knew about Indian ones.

"Throughout my entire course, I couldn't find a single mention of an Indian film.

Not even Satyajit Ray," he says, "So I started trying to introduce people to Indian films. There was an editing assignment where I used Rang De Basanti [2006] as a reference. "

How did people react? "They loved it." But his biggest regret is still the fact that he, "couldn't make a bunch of British kids watch Lagaan [2001]," he jokes.

In Bournemouth, he became friends with citizens from all different countries. And so, friends became muse for an old hobby of his - map-making. It's something he'd picked up when he was a six-year-old, and spent years just drawing maps. "One time, there was a professor of mine, who was from Canada. He'd been living in the UK for almost 15 years. I made a map of his hometown, and I remember watching him trace places on it with his fingers. He'd say, ‘This is where my school was. This is where my college was.'" But this is a hobby he never wants to monetise. "It's something I do only for me."

The hobby he is monetising is filmmaking, which has taken the shape of a production house called Mumbai Fixers. Here, he manages end-to-end production and logistics for foreign documentaries and corporate shoots. What does that mean exactly? "Let's say someone from the US, Europe, or anywhere else wants to shoot in India. They want to make a documentary, but they don't know the rules, local crew, equipment, or logistics. I help them sort everything out."

Other than that, what lights up Srivastava is his love for history. And so, he's married it to filmmaking as well with his work as a film researcher. He tells us tales from one of his projects, "One time, I was working on a web series about famous scams in India. I went on field where this scam had happened. I spoke to the victims. I spoke to supporters of the scamster, trying to give shape to a story," he says. "He had supporters?" we quip back. "He was a she," Srivastava says, coy now, with a smile.

His love for history means that he's always sharing trivia about the city, which he talks about on his Substack called "Maps by Sagar". "In Bombay during the seventeenth or eighteenth century - we've all heard stories about Indians rebelling against the British - this was the opposite," he says, "British soldiers rebelled against the British in Bombay.

For almost a year, there were effectively no British soldiers in Bombay because they were protesting low wages and poor working conditions."

Another favourite is the story around the first train that took off from Thane. "People were deathly afraid of them. Trains were called lokhandi rakshas - the Iron Monster. They thought it was a giant metal beast," he says, "Can you imagine a Mumbaikar ever being afraid of trains today?" he quips.

Such a Mumbaikar features some of the city's coolest people, doing things that make us go hmmmmm.