16 November,2025 09:23 AM IST | Mumbai | Aastha Atray Banan
Sidharth Bhatia. Pic/Kirti Surve Parade
We meet author and journalist Sidharth Bhatia at the Royal Yacht Club, a structure and institution as Mumbai as it can be. It seems apt because Bhatia's new book, Mumbai: A Million Islands, is about this marvellous city we all live in, or aspire to make a home in. It also talks of the relentless way the city has transformed in the past five years. As the coastal road, the Atal Setu, and other constructions have taken over, Bhatia rues the loss of space, memory and history. "The book can be seen as a record of where we are now. The city has been changing, and that's axiomatic of Mumbai, because it's already changing. This book may be completely outdated in 15 years - it's a time capsule. But it's changing on steroids. People don't have words to describe what's happening; everywhere there is dust, there is digging, there are cranes - this affects us on a daily basis. One-time quiet areas like Khar and Malabar - people don't know how to react. I felt the same. I had to record this."
Sitting with Bhatia, whom this writer had the pleasure of working under as Editor, and who is the Founding Editor of The Wire, is cathartic, because it's like sitting with a die-hard lover of Mumbai. In times where we find more things to complain about this metropolis than appreciate, Mumbaikars like Bhatia are rare. He may be able to point out its flaws in detail, but he also loves the city through thick and thin, and till death does us all apart. In the book, he talks, and has visited, areas many of us have only heard tales of, never daring to tread beyond our comfort zones. Like Lallubhai Compound, a residential colony made up of 72 buildings, which was created under the Slum Rehabilitation Act, with construction work completed in 2003. "This is where project affected people are moved. Who are they? For example, a road is widened, and the people living on the sides of that road are then shifted. For example, someone I spoke to had been living in a make-shift slum at the GPO. There is no transport there, there is nothing. There was a report of high incidents of TB there. There is no ventilation, and no sewerage. But what's worse is that these people who have been moved, used to belong to a community where they first stayed. Care has been taken to separate them, so communities break up," he tells us, his face scrunching up in alarm.
He then asks us, "Do you know what it takes for a place to get BMC water in this city?" before he tells us the painstaking procedure. For example, Darukhana slums (built on land belonging to the Mumbai Port Trust), which Bhatia writes extensively about, have historically faced a lack of civic amenities. "So when the people from the slums went to the BMC, they say, âthe slums are on dock land, so the BMC has nothing to do with it'. Once you somehow manage to convince the municipality, it has to be signed by a registered plumber - who is that? An architect who is registered as a plumber. It's madness. But I found that there are three things going on, and what can make something like this possible," says Bhatia, taking a pause. "Persistent NGOs, feisty locals, and a sympathetic officer. Those also exist, as they are human enough to know that water is a basic right. You and I pay some R8-9 for 1000 litres. They pay R40 per hundred litres. This city is very warm, but this city is very cold. We always knew about slums, and skyscrapers, but it was growing. So when I started talking to people, I saw an opportunity to write this."
People is also whom make up the bulk of his book. Each neighbourhood he talks of - be it Mumbra, Dongri, Sewri, Behrampada in Bandra East, or Dadar Parsi colony - has a unique character representing it. "Mumbai is full of stories; we all have a story, but there are certain stories that are more compelling. I wanted to tell shocking stories about the city they live in - we journalists go to places, but how many of us have gone to the slums? What do you know of the people there, their economy, their homes?"
But thanks to Bhatia, and his book, you will meet more of Mumbai, and maybe learn to love it despite the state it is in. When we ask Bhatia, who has grown up in Mumbai, what his favourite part of the city is, he says without missing a beat, "Kala Ghoda." However, he isn't a fan of the actual Kala Ghoda sculpture. "That takes away the mystery. "For everyone in the city, that's the city. It's also very historic - behind you is Colaba. On the East is the naval dockyard, which is the place where this city began, because the East India Company bought it from the Raj immediately. They wanted that natural harbour. On the West, the first layer is the Gothic, then the Art Deco, then the Bay. And when you look ahead, the modern city begins - what they called the native towns - Kalbadevi, Dhobi Talao and the rest. There is Jehangir, the courts, David Sassoon - art, education, restaurants, and Dr Ambedkar wrote the Constitution at Wayside Café. I like Kala Ghoda. I suspect many people will think the same." We do, and those who don't, may see it differently once they read the book. And that's what Bhatia ends with. "We live here, and we know and absorb nuances about this city, not just Instagram nuances. But do we really know much? This book will make you look at the city in a new light."
