Smoke bubble

For the past eight and a half years Mumbai has been home to English architect and photographer Robert D Stephens For him the city is not just a place where he lives but where he struggles mdash to breath to see trees even to find a patch of grass to walk on ldquoIn that sense Mumbai North is my attempt to identify and photograph some of the remaining ecological riches of the city mdash which have become so marginalised that they feel nonexistentrdquo says the 31yearold who has photographed areas such as Powai Gorai creek and Juhu from an airplane ldquoAlso from the air Mumbai offered a compelling view that I felt must be capturedrdquo he addsJuhu Beach January 2015 ldquoCrescentshaped and palmfringed Juhu is almost deserted on weekdays Saturdays and Sundays camels ponies acrobats and dancing monkeys enliven the scenerdquo mdash Bombay Handbook Page 86 American Womens Association 1973It was in 2009 that Stephens the Principal at RMA Architects first began shooting aerial images The idea took birth while he sat at the window seat while flying over Mumbai Last year he exhibited his work that captured South Mumbai covering areas like Tardeo Apollo Bunder Lower Parel and Dadar His new project Mumbai North spans from December 2014 to November this year ldquoThe only difference between now and then is that the hirises of South Mumbai are slightly higher and more in number The smog still wraps around the towers like romance makers huddled together on Marine Drive mdash stuck with nowhere else to gordquoSanjay Gandhi National Park December 2014 ldquoThe sublime natural landscape provides a handsome bait for escape from urban rigidity especially the lake areas with their wild landscape the ornamental patches of well laidout gardens set against a background of more rugged growth of trees overlooking the serene waters of the lake has a magnetic attractionrdquo mdash Development Plan for Greater Bombay Page 52A large chunk of his research was done through Google Earth and reading of archival material on the city While all the images were taken from an airplane Stephens wonrsquot tell us how he got access to it apart from the fact that therersquos no permission needed to shoot such pictures ldquoThis is the only secret I prefer to keeprdquo he saysThe inspiration for Mumbai North came from the overwhelming scale of Sanjay Gandhi National Park ldquoFrom the air one realises just how large SGNP is mdash nearly 17 per cent of Mumbais land mass mdash equivalent to 191800 local train compartmentsrdquo he says Armed with a handheld Sony camera that fits in his pocket Stephens found that the smothering air pollution was the biggest obstacle in his way ldquoOn many days Irsquod be above the city and not able to see the cityrdquo Air pollution he adds is something we Mumbaikars have learned to live with ldquoFour years ago I went to my doctor and explained that I had a recurring scratchy thoat I asked if he could prescribe something to help His response was lsquoCongratulations you are a Bombay resident nowrsquordquo he laughsGorai Creek January 2015 The surveys carried out have revealed that the city has roughly about frac14 acre 1000 population as against 7 acres and 10 acres 1000 population standard adopted in Britain and the USA There being no effective measures to prevent overcrowding and to check the prevailing high densities consequent upon the low living standards these have all summed up to make the existing open spaces more and more deficient mdash Development Plan for Greater Bombay Page 50 Municipal Corporation of Greater Bombay 1964Interestingly all the 24 photos are captioned with historical excerpts from a host of books about Mumbai from the The Charm of Bombay edited by RP Karkaria in 1915 to a 1980 book titled Fertility and Family Planning in Greater Bombay by JR Rele and Tara Kanitkar However Stephensrsquo favourite photograph is one of Aldeamear Fort that shows the Western boundary of suburban Mumbai with an artistic folding line where land and sea meet The supporting archival text is paired with an excerpt from a book published in 1953 titled Roads to Beauty Around Bombay written by Homi J H TaleyarkhanStephens prefers to keep the pictures black and white ldquoIt is the city of contrasts But also the city of grey spaces where black and white cooperate to make beautiful compositions togetherrdquo he smiles