Go Girgaon gone?

Architect-urban planner Mihir Vaidya grew up in Datta Mandir Wadi, where the open corridors served as community spaces where residents can gather and socialise. Pic/Shadab Khan

When we walk into the building in the middle of a steamy August afternoon, the five-storey chawl bears a quiet look, with festive preparations yet to begin. We think back to the grand celebrations that took place here just two years ago, when the mandal celebrated its centenary. It remains to be seen if this year’s fervour matches up.

Of all the cultural events in the year, Ganeshotsav is the one that has historically held the most significance in Girgaon. This is, after all, where Bal Gangadhar Tilak first began the tradition of sarvajanik — community — festivities in Mumbai in 1893, as a way to unite people against the British. In the decades since, every chawl in every bylane here has established its own Ganpati mandal. To this day, the biggest mandals in the city, including Lalbaugcha Raja, still follow the traditional visarjan route, cutting through Girgaon before immersing the idol at Chowpatty. And yet, here in the festival’s own “birthplace”, celebrations have been witnessing a decline in strength in recent years, due to an exodus of the Marathi community as the redevelopment wave sweeps the chawls.

Mohun Building, a 121-year-old chawl in Girgaon’s Thakurdwar area, is likely to go the same way as other chawls around and be replaced by a tower in the coming years. Pics/Ashish Raje

Mihir Vaidya, an architect and urban designer who also runs the Instagram account Chawls of Girgaon, explains the significance of the cultural loss that the city’s very “first suburb” is experiencing: “When Bombay was first established during the colonial era, the city comprised only Fort George, or today’s Fort precinct. Then, entire communities migrated to the city and settled around it, in Girgaon. Each community had its own pocket or wadi, which had its own temple, shops and social infrastructure. This wadi system is unique to Girgaon, and the chawls here have large courtyards which encourage community spirit. Perhaps this is why freedom fighters would hold rallies here, and why sarvajanik Ganeshotsav started from here.”

Vaidya’s 2023 study, Reintegrating Chawl Culture in the New Development of Girgaon, published in the Journal of the Indian Institute of Architects, pointed out that while wadis allotted 35 per cent area for community spaces; new constructions set aside a meagre 10 per cent for social functions. “Where is the space to hold large Ganeshotsav celebrations? This is why a lot of mandals in Girgaon cease to exist once the chawls are redeveloped,” says the architect, who grew up in Datta Mandir Wadi, which is among the 80-odd chawls that remain in existence there.

Mohun Building’s large courtyard are where residents celebrate Ganeshotsav and children play cricket

Towers mushrooming across Girgaon ruin the festive mood in  another way, he adds. “A lot of the charm of the visarjan procession lies in being cheered on by residents from their verandahs. Going past towers now only gives glimpses of parking levels, or dead space.”

The dip in Marathi culture manifests in other ways as well. In Kandewadi, we find Prakash Jore selling flowers at his stall outside the Akkalkot Swami Samarth Math. When he and his brother started the stall 30 years ago, they’d get a steady footfall of buyers headed to pray at the Maharashtrian sage’s shrine. “Now, business is slow, especially when it comes to items used in Marathi rituals, such as durva, bel patra, and tulsi,” he sighs. 

If it is redeveloped as a tower, this community space might cease to exist

These days, the neighbourhood is seeing a rise in the grandeur of religious events such as Paryushan, Janmashtami, and Navatri, says Shobha Rele, a devotee visiting the temple. “These days, I even find myself speaking in Hindi to the shopkeepers just as often as Marathi,” she says.

Girgaon may have started out with a Marathi focus, but it grew into a multi-cultural hub over time. “The people who originally settled in Girgaon in the 1800s were workers and service professionals who had come to build the city, its buildings, and roads,” says archaeologist and historian Andre Baptista, who has spent the last five years studying Girgaon’s changing culturescape. “Among these original settlers was the Marathi community, as well as the Marathi East Indian Christians, who settled in Khotachiwadi, which is where I live. In those days, Girgaon was in the outskirts, and property was affordable. My great-grandfather had bought a plot for R3000 in those days. Today, that amount would be equivalent to R50 lakh, which would buy a small plot in Panvel,” he explains. 

Anup Barve, Neil Bastani and Kurush Dalal

Over time, the affordable housing drew people from all walks of life and Girgaon grew into a multi-cultural hub. “It drew people across communities, professions and ideologies, from painters to musicians and dramatists. It drew big names like Raja Ravi Verma and VS Gaitonde. Because of this cultural milieu, Girgaon was always given to progressive ideology. Right or left, it was represented here. It was a very good example of pluralism in thought, if not in culture,” says Baptista, adding, “I think that’s sadly missing today.”

“I think if you asked anyone here if they truly want to demolish the chawls or leave it, they will say no,” says Vaidya, “But for some, redevelopment and selling their flats is the only way to move up in life. Most residents opt for redevelopment because they either want houses with toilets, privacy, or a home in their own name,” he adds. 

Andre Baptista outside his house in Khotachiwadi. File pic/Satej Shinde

He highlights that unlike Colaba or Malabar Hill, Girgaon has always been a middle-income neighbourhood, bolstered by affordable housing in the form of pagdi (rent-controlled) tenements. This last frontier, too, has now been breached by the redevelopment wave.

“Chawl residents don’t own their houses, they lease it on the pagdi system,” explains Barve, “But after redevelopment, they get possession of their own flats. Many of them go on to sell these flats and then move to the suburbs where they can find cheaper and bigger housing.”

The fun of the visarjan procession lies in being cheered on by residents in the chawl verandahs. File pic

In some cases, the suburbanisation doesn’t wait for redevelopment. As younger generations find financial mobility with better jobs, many have chosen to give up their rent-controlled homes with communal toilets in the chawl, and move to the suburbs for a better standard of living. At Mohun Building, where Barve points to the empty verandahs that wrap around the courtyard: “There are 110 houses here, but about 60 per cent of them are vacant. So many people have already left in search of more space.”

Mumbai has no room for a vacuum, though. So, as one community exits, others have arrived to make Girgaon their home. Many of them hail from business communities with deep pockets that can afford the newer, expensive high-rise apartments. For the Marwaris and Gujaratis, who have been working in the nearby diamond industry hub and wholesale markets for generations, making a home in Girgaon makes sense. 

There are some, though, who point out how this new wave is changing the cultural fabric of the neighbourhood, such as the closure of Marathi cinema and performance halls such as Central  Plaza and Majestic theatres. 

It’s the same story with Girgaon’s legendary khanavals (lunch homes), where workers could find affordable, non-vegetarian meals. The shuttering of Khotachiwadi’s iconic Anantashram, which served crab curry to stars like singer Asha Bhosle and cricketer Dilip Sardesai, was a big blow. 

Just a few metres away, Golden Star Thali is another testament to changing tastes in the area. Bahai restaurateur Zia Eshraghi switched the eatery from kheema-pao and bun-maska to vegetarian thalis, finding plenty of takers among the neighbourhood’s diamond merchants. 

One of the biggest changes that local bakery owner Neil Bastani has noticed in the locality is the “disappearance of the [East Indian] Catholics”, who are traditionally known for their affinity to baked products. Bastani runs his bakery Daryush near Opera House, where it was set up by his great-great-grandfather. Once  famed for its jam puffs, macaroons, and other confections, Daryush now finds more takers for “vegan cakes and other modern offerings, such as chocolate chip cookies”, says Bastani, adding, “Tastes have changed, but our 100 per cent butter khari — no margarine used — and cheese straws still remain popular; they are evergreen.”
“When I took over the bakery, I took the cue from the neighbourhood’s residents, who were predominantly vegetarian, and switched to eggless preparations,” says Bastani. 

Ahead in Kandewadi, Ideal Bakery made a similar switch to eggless products a decade ago, after over 70 years of egg-based preparations. A giant red board inside the bakery proclaims that they sell only vegetarian  products. 

It’s perhaps safer to make this distinction at a time when quite a few of the newly redeveloped towers have closed their doors to non-vegetarian residents and businesses. “It’s been happening for quite some time, and not just in Girgaon,” says Kurush F Dalal, archaeologist, historian, and culinary anthropologist. “Non-vegetarian restaurants are being made unwelcome and pushed out. In Chembur, my student’s building was being redeveloped, and the residents told the builder not to sell shops in the complex to non-vegetarian establishments.” 

The rising bias against non-vegetarian house-hunters has been reported on widely, and remains a sore point with the meat-eating Marathi community that increasingly finds itself unable to buy or rent a home in their own city. 

“There’s a tower not too far from here where non-vegetarians have been turned away,” shares Barve. 

Asked if Mohun Building’s residents are concerned this might be an issue once their new tower is completed and vegetarian buyers object to meat being cooked near them, he answers, “A few years ago, we had a resident who objected to a fishmonger selling fish inside the compound. But all of us came together and explained that she had been selling fish here for years, and this was only happening in the chawl’s public space. Perhaps when the new tower is being built,  vegetarians and meat-eaters can be housed on separate floors.”

The Mohun Building compound measures 1540 square metres and includes three structures with 110 homes in total. For an indication of how many homes will be packed into the tower anticipated to come up here, we turn to Vaidya’s research. To explain how DCPR 2034 norms apply to redevelopment in Girgaon, he  draws up a simulation of a plot that’s over 1000 square metres, which houses, say, a four-storey chawl with 198 existing homes. This would likely be replaced by a 40-storey tower with 221 apartments. Of these, the 198 original families would get 45-square-metre units, while 23 new buyers would get 75-square-metre units. And, it’s not just the size of the apartment that’ll divide the residents. 

The formula of segregation suggested earlier by Barve is commonly used in many redevelopment projects, says Vaidya, and it’s not always to the original residents’ benefit. 

“Developers put old residents in units that will be harder to sell, such as the lower floors, or at the back of the building. Sometimes the lifts for the original residents and new buyers are separate, so there is no interaction. Sometimes, separate buildings are built for the two groups,” he says. 

“It’s the complete opposite of chawls, where the setting is so proximal that you can’t shut each other out. There’s tolerance and acceptance of each other’s culture and food preferences. We used to be close to each other, now we are getting closed off.”

35% 
Allotment of community space in Girgaon’s wadis 

10% 
Community space allotted in new Girgaon projects 

80
No. of chawls left in Girgaon
*Source: MHADA

Iconic Keshavji Naik chawl  chooses self-redevelopment

Keshavji Naik chawl is considered the birthplace of the sarvajanik Ganeshotsav. File pic

The birthplace of the sarvajanik Ganeshotsav, Keshavji Naik chawl, has opted for self-redevelopment, says architect-urban planner Mihir Vaidya. “In regular redevelopment, the builder funds the entire project but also makes all decisions about allotment. They might try to reduce community spaces, or segregate residents,” he explains, “In self-redevelopment, the residents hold the decision power. They get funding from financial institutions, and hire the architect, and contractor. They can decide how much community space to earmark, and also to cap construction at, say, 20 floors and sell the rest of the FSI to a developer.” This way, he adds, the residents will be able to preserve their sense of community and also keep their 132-year-old Ganpati mandal alive. This is good news for Maharastrian restaurant, Panshikar, located half a kilometre from the chawl. Since the 1920s, three generations of the family that runs it have welcomed Ganpati revellers with ukadiche modak and faral. “In those days, residents of Girgaon were mostly Marathi. Many have left the neighbourhood, but some still return during Ganeshotsav and take home faral from our store,” says proprietor Jitendra Panshikar.

Jitendra Panshikar

On the policy front, Vaidya believes the adoption of a variable FSI and a more fluid version of heritage norms for precincts should be promoted. 

The government should offer lower FSI in heritage chawl areas, to discourage builders looking to turn a quick buck. This will instead encourage self-redevelopment. Where that’s not possible, he suggests cluster redevelopment; a few smaller chawls coming together to make one large plot gives them more bargaining power. 

Panshikar restaurant has served ukadiche modak to devotees at the Keshavji Naik Ganeshotsav mandal since the 1920s

Retro-fitting the chawls with toilets and structural maintenance by government agencies might help plug the exodus too, he says, citing Jitekar Wadi, where residents have decided against redevelopment since they already have self sufficient homes in terms of space and sanitation.

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