I met Reena a.k.a. Spitphyre in a writers’ discussion and told her she was quite lovely. Of course, that day she was dressed like the pretty girl that she is. But her sense of colour blew me away during the Wall Project. Move over street artists, bright walls and graffitiers, Reena’s outfit puts everyone to shame.

Even on that already bright day, amidst a street awash with colour, Reena’s yellow tie-dye dungarees teamed with a postbox red tee-shirt were what stood out. If you’re thinking it was just a matter of tossing together some randomly colourful outfits, do check out her footwear – sexy, strappy flat sandals in the same shade of red.

Yellow and red painter girl

Reena doesn’t have a loud voice or an imposing outline; she doesn’t have to! Her outfit itself was one brilliant exclamation point and she so made it work! Check out the matching sunglasses (in a Posh Beckham shows a smile pose).

As I keep saying, it isn’t just the colour or the fit, it’s cattitude that makes I Style! work. Here she is in a ‘don’t I look preggie’ pose. That’s on account of the red (matching again!) wallet tucked into the kangaroo style pocket in the front.

That's my fat wallet, not tummy, you dummy!

Finally, here’s the lady doing a Bangles number on the sidewalk. Need any more proof that she’s I Style!‘s latest star?

Walking like an Egyptian

Yesterday, we commenced on Phase II of the drive, this time taking the street art concept to Lower Parel, opposite Phoenix Mills and simultaneously pulling off the cause of education-through-art with The Alphabet Project at the Mahim end of the same road. I was waiting to collate all the photographs that are still appearing across the net, to write the post about it.

Then earlier this evening, we discovered that a different sort of vandalism had happened. Movie posters of Aladin, Canvas and Gair have turned up, pasted over the paintings, less than 24 hours later. I’m rusty on the legalities of these movie advertisements that appear all over the city. All I can say is that Wall Project was a BMC initiative and certainly not meant to be a backdrop for the marketing of Bollywood.

As outrage spreads across Twitter, even as I write, Ritesh Deshmukh and Sujoy Ghosh have been notified and have both issued apologies. But an apology I say, is not enough. It is enough of effort getting past the apathy of citizens to drive forward something like The Wall Project. Asking people to come out of their houses on a Sunday and spend a searingly hot day painting a rough wall for free is not an easy task. So much for the so-called indifference of this city, the numbers of people that turned out are testimony to the fact that Mumbaikers do indeed care. But after such an episode, would a citizen want to take the initiative?

My guess is that this will boil down to #wallproject becoming a popular Twitter topic for a few days; there will be a few media mentions about the outrage of social media users after a citizen drive and a clean-up PR effort with apologies by the people in the limelight. At some level, I expect some poor poster-paster will get yelled at or even lose his job. Is the onus of this to be laid on him? No, I say, the onus of this must be borne by the people who well understand the power of advertising and publicity, the people with the moolah, the people who have the most to gain from publicity, of any sort. Blaming the poster company or the person who put up the posters is not enough; the responsibility lies with the people who gain from the effort of the publicity. I say turn that idea around and make sure that the negative publicity hurts right where it should. Every person who stands to gain from the movies’ good collections holds responsibility for the end result and hence must bear the consequences of such an action.

See the before and after pictures courtesy @wanderblah

ALADIN

CANVAS

GAIR

LONDON DREAMS

If this is our city and its state is our concern, we have the right to stay outraged. I say, boycott the movies Aladin, Canvas, Gair and London Dreams, whose posters vandalize a community drive. Commissioning those posters not only hurts the sentiments of those whose painted walls have been covered, it cocks-a-snook at the Mumbaiker while saying,

To hell with your sensibilities. Advertising my movie is more important. I don’t care if a citizen effort that managed to raise such civic consciousness so successfully, is scuttled.

If you participated in The Wall Project or know someone who did, add value to that effort by passing this message on. If you are a blogger or a Twitter user, re-tweet this, blog about it, link to other posts about this. If you are reading this at all, you probably have access to the internet and a mobile phone. Use them to pass on the message. Spread the outrage, it needs to be felt.

EcoFrendz is a brand that has retailed bags from Landmark before but I’ve never seen some of these designs on display before. The bag I bought is khaki coloured cloth with a black cloth strap. Now normally, I’d pass off this stuff as being too stereotypical social worker stuff. But look at what’s on the side. It says ‘Let’s go places’ and it even has a real compass hanging down the side! I can see myself carrying this with jeans, salwar-kameezes as well as a skirt!

Now I’m a sucker for toys like that, it’s kitschy, it’s cool without being flamboyant. How’s that for I Style!?!

Bandra was a tiny fishing village inhabited by the Koli fishermen. There were also farmers.

It was acquired by the British East India Company even while the rest of Bombay belonged to the Portuguese.

There was a 18 hole golf course in Bandra and it was called Danda Green with an English style Club House on the top of the hill, surrounded by trees. Membership was only for the British who lived in Pali Hill. Each cottage had a stable for horses.

Bandra consisted of villages Sherly, Malla, Rajan, Kantwady, Waroda, Ranwar, Boran and Pali besides Chuim. Ranwar also had a tennis court and the famous Ranwar Club famous for Christmas and New Year eve dances.

Most of the elder of Bandra worked for the East India Company and hence called East Indians. In the Bandra of the forties and before, large cottages with large gardens were available for rent at Rs 30/- a month. Marriages were held with an 8 day celebration from Thursday to Thursday for a Sunday wedding and the whole village was invited.

Thursday was the pig slaughter day and Friday to make pappads for drinks, Saturday to make fugias and bring water from the village well to bathe the bride or groom. Sunday was the wedding ceremony and long reception.

Monday was day of rest and to finish remaining food and on Tuesday the feet of guests were washed in exchange for cash. Then farewell dinner on Wed and guests left on Thursday by which time honeymoon was over.

Tradition has it that the suburb was originally known as Vandra or Ape as it was the home of monkeys, then Bandor as the Portuguese called it in 1505, then called Bandera, Bandura, Bandore, Pandara, Bandorah, Bandara and finally Bandra till a railway sign board finalized it at the end of the last century.

Salsette was originally separated by a tidal creek which Portuguese called Bandora creek. English changed it to Mahim creek.

Bandra had 2 hills, the Mount Mary hill and the Pail hill. On 12th Apr 1867 the first railway service was inaugurated of one train per day between Virar and Bombay.

Bandra at one time was peopled mainly by East Indians (original residents of Bombay Salsette, Bassein, and Thana), a few Goans and Manglorian immigrants, Parsis, Muslims, Europeans and Hindu Kolis. Till as late as the 30’s Bandra had only one bus service from Pali Naka, Hill road to the Rly stn. Other people just walked to the nearest Rly stn. After World War II the building boom started to accommodate immigrants.

The five oldest roads in Bandra are: Godbunder Rd, originally ran from Mahim causeway, then to skirt Bazaar Rd, went past the Bandra talab and continued to Godbunder. The road was later made straight by cutting through the talab. 

Bazaar Rd began at Godbunder Rd opposite the mosque and ran through the market keeping close to the
coast which is now the reclamation. 

Hill Rd
starting fm stn went through middle of Bandra town, past St Andrews to terminate at the foot of the Mount near Mehboob studio. Pali Rd began at St Peters cut through Pali village till Danda. 

BJ Rd runs from St Andrews to Lands End, was built by Byramjee Jeejebhoy and opened to public in 1878. 

There are over 150 crosses at various places. Many crosses were built to ward off the plague epidemic (1896-1906).The oldest is the one relocated in St Andrew’s church compound. Stands 17ft high and made of a single stone. It was originally in the Jesuit seminary of St
Anne built in 1610. The bldg was destroyed in 1739 and the cross was relocated to St Andrews church. The surface is carved all
over with 39 emblems of the passion of Christ. 

Bazaar Rd is only 2 km long but houses a Jain temple, Ram mandir, Hanuman temple, Khoja mosque, Christian chapel and a Sikh gurduwara. 

Main roads in Bandra Perry, Carter, Bullock, Kane, and Bates were named after British collectors and magistrates. Mr Carter was collector in 1924 and Mr Bullock was the Chief Magistrate.

Christians in Bandra are mostly of the Koli, Bhandari and Kunbi castes. 

The architect of Mount Mary’s church was a Bombay architect Shahpoorjee Chandabhoy. The basilica was built in 1904 at a cost of Rs.1 lakh. Also the first time a non catholic was asked to build the church. It was built to serve the garrison posted at Castella de Aguada-the fort at Land’s End road. It was destroyed in a fire in 1739 and rebuilt in 1761, the year marking beginning of Bandra feast as it is
celebrated today. 

The walls enclosing the compound of St Andrew’s church was built by a Parsi, Manockjee Sorabjee Ashburner in 1862. It is recorded on a slab on the main gate of the enclosure. In 1879, Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy constructed a flight of steps from foot of Mt Mary hill to north side of church known as the Degrados de Bomanjee (steps of Bomanjee). 

St Stanislaus started in 1863 as a ‘Native Boy’s orphanage’ became a high school in 1923 and was first English medium in the
suburbs.

 
In 1661 when King Charles married Catherina of Portugal, Bombay was given to England as part of the dowry. Salsette was not part of this treaty and remained with the Portuguese.

In 1739 with the threat of Maratha invasion, the Portuguese appealed to the British for help and they suggested to the Portuguese to destroy all fortifications around the chapel and the fortress Aguada. However the Marathas took over and ruled for 2 decades. But after the battle of Panipat in 1761, Maratha power declined and the British took over and Salsette including Bandra came under British rule. Portuguese were left with just Goa, Daman and Diu.

The English found in this newly acquired territory of Salsette thousands of Indian families who were converted to Christianity.

It was from these families the English drew their supplies of clerks, assistants and secretaries. At that time there was hardly a Hindu, Parsi or Muslim who could read Roman characters.

There was also a large influx of Christians from Goa, Karnataka and Kerala and this prompted local converts to take the name of ‘East Indians’ and form the East Indian Association on 26th May 1887 to distinguish the ’sons of the soil’ who were the first employees of the East India Company, from Indian Christians who came from further down the West coast and shared the same names and religion, and vied for the same jobs.

Crossing the Mahim creek was by ferry to the industrial town of Bombay. After many boats capsized, a road was built by Lady Jamsethji in 1843 at a cost of Rs.1,55,800. It was designed by Lt.Crawford and opened to public in 1845.

Railway started in 1867 with one train but 6 yrs later it was increased to 24
each day and now trains that stop at Bandra are 940.

The Tata Agiary on Hill Rd was built by Tata in memory of his wife in 1884. 

So much for my dear Bandra!

i am the BEST

Isn’t his tee-shirt absolutely fab? It’s Bambaiyya in a way that nothing else starts to match.For the uninitiated, BEST, an acronym for Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport, runs the Mumbai bus system. Every bus carries the BEST logo in Hindi, in white inside an oval white patch, painted on the side of the bright red bus. It’s one of Mumbai’s most recognizable logos.

The BEST man's tee-shirt

The good news is that Neil is himself a designer and retails his creations from his website. Do drop into his place if you’d like to carry forward his style. Or as I’d like to call it, Neil’s I Style!

Update: The full form of BEST has been corrected (thank you, Peter!). Much apologies for the error; I can only blame it on the 4a.m. posting.

Having put out an ‘official’ call on Twitter, I know I really should have been at the venue by the stipulated 8a.m. but I plead a swine flu scare which made me stay in bed with the sniffles till afternoon. Thankfully for me, my dear Aditya shook me out of my hypochondriacal stupor with a,

You really don’t know what you’re missing! Take care of yourself and I hope you feel better soon.

Hain! Such things could not be endured so like a flash we were out of bed and chugging our way to Mahim station. Since I got there only half-way through the day, I missed picking out one of the early spots close to the station entrance. Still, I’d like to think that the quality of the paintings improve as you move from Mahim to Matunga. Heh, ‘my’ wall and those of my friends are nearly at the end, right next to Matunga Road station! ;-)

Moksh planted...err, painted...trees. Simple, detailed and lovely.

The BMC had provided paints, brushes and thoughtfully, a tanker full of water to splash up. On Day 1, I even managed to get a lift from them from the station, all the way down to my wall. Aditya, Rehab, Spitphyre and Vagrant Seeker had been already and created their colourful collage, replete with Twitter ids. They also very thoughtfully helped me start up my first wall project and left me to fill in the end details.

Left to right: BMC guy, @wanderblah, @ideasmithy, @Spitphyre, @Adityab, BMC guy

Since the BMC came around to wrap up by around 5:30pm, I’m afraid it turned out to be a rather rushed job. The results can be seen on a pinky-pink wall with green swirly things and bleeding red eyes, almost opposite to the J&J building. I was gunning for a psychedelic design but I’m afraid it ended up being more kiddy crayoney.

Pink Psychedelia: My efforts at the end of Day 1

I also managed to carefully white-wash the wall on its immediate left, layering on the paint evenly. When the BMC guys took away my paints, I vowed to get back early the next day and start on the white wall.

If you're wondering why there's white in my hair, it's my swine-flu protection pushed up to double up as headband!

Rather unfortunately the next day too, my sleepy somnambulistic side surfaced and I ended up getting there only around noon (Aditya, stop laughing! You also turned up at exactly the same time!). To my grimacing-frowny dismay, the whitewashed wall had been taken over by a family. What’s more, my carefully even-toned whitewash was being covered meticulously by layer over layer of blue-black. Ah well, I cut my losses and decided to look for another wall further up.

Happily I bumped into Shawn, Wanderblah, Jayant, Spitphyre, Aniceto and Jai at the end of the road. The corner after the tree seemed to become ‘ours’ as we set up our mini-studio there, piling up our backpacks onto the carriers of the taxis close by and painting the adjacent walls. We were joined in the middle of the day by Ashwin, Princila and Sayan. Princila took up the brush to paint a little something right under my painting. She says it’s a man being splashed with paint but I personally think it looks like a guy running away from the spotlight…which inspired me to spray an ‘AnonyMouse’ next to it.

I never imagined painting a wall could be so much fun and I realize in retrospect that it was only because it was such a community event. None of my art classes or solo ventures have been as thrilling as the weekend I spent with these amazing guys. We poked fun at each other’s artwork, we photographed together and each other in weird poses (and continue to leave silly comments on each other’s FB albums), we shared paints and brushes, we mixed up our ideas and added to each other’s work. It was such a lovely, brilliant day!

Top l-r: Jai, Spitphyre, Adityab, Wanderblah. Bottom: Ideasmith, Shawn

We also received our 10 seconds of fame when Aparna brought in an interview on UTVi (aired yesterday and to be repeated on the weekend; youtube video to be linked shortly). Their anchor was very prettily (and somewhat unsuitably) dressed in a lavender formal shirt, wherein she borrowed my paint-streaked apron (already smuggled out of mum’s kitchen). That’s the one that you see on her in the video. :D

With @Spitphyre, being interviewed on UTVi for a TechTree segment.

There was a spot of unpleasantness when we tussled for the plastic stool and spray paint cans with our neighbors, one of whom left after uttering a diabolical statement that the paintings may not be around the next day.

But the ickiest part of the day wasn’t the mean neighbors or the blue-paint which turned out to be a shitty brown. It was the attack of the Twitter vandals. If you’ve been around on the Twitterverse, you’ll know who I’m talking about. I’m rather embarrassed to admit that I invited the leader of that gang to visit the wall and join us in the project, earlier in the day. Of course I had no way of knowing that his version of contributing to The Wall Project would be to spray-paint his own name on other people’s good work, mess around with some really fantastic paintings, take stupid dirty photos of the wall and finally to add insult to injury, tweet that,

We’re done desecrating the wall project.

I’m embarrassed to say that I know this man. Most of the tweeple who were around that day have unfollowed the vandals in question. The leader of that gang has since initiated a ‘clean-up’ effort and accordingly tweeted pictures of his effort. But as far as I’m concerned, I’m left with a the thought that,

That’s just uncool. Only for losers, dude.

‘Nuff said.

The highlight of our day was the Twitter wall that we painted in our far corner. One panel was painstakingly painted shiny blue (we couldn’t get the pale sky blue of Twitter) long after everyone else had packed up. And then we recreated a Twitter timeline with actual tweets from the gang that was there. I’m so proud of us for this one guys, you all rock!

Though the Project spanned only two days, people are still talking about it. There’s newpapers, the TV interview and loads and loads of photographs circulating on Facebook and discussions still happening. Yes, the BMC may have pulled a Tom Sawyer on us but what the hell, it was fun, wasn’t it (aching bones notwithstanding)?!

Hidden Tiger, Crouching @adityab

Painting @krist0ph3r's face. Don't miss his expression!

DangerMouse on the divider

Aniceto with Jai. Aditya in the background making big eyes.

And here are the results of the brilliant efforts of the wonderful people I was with.

Spitphyre's fairytale

Shawn's SCREAM

Wanderblah and Jhayu doing their crazy thing!

@adityab's Space Wars

And here’s my piece de resistance (I hope that was used in the right context *gulp*) – my own wall!!! **DRUM ROLL**

Here’s the chess board representing order and structure, being ripped apart by a hand (whose model was a street kid called Sultan). A conversation with Sultan resulted in the painting of a crown and then a king who looked like a queen. Hence that’s the Red Queen looking very happy over the breakdown of order.

It's a honour, a high honour you see, to have tea with the Red Queen and me! - Alice in Wonderland

And finally, the resultant chaos, also known as the hungama inside my head or as you know it – theideasmithy.com. TADA!!! Incidently I stand accused of using up half of BMC’s paint supplies on one wall. I’ve also been diagnosed by the God of Gas as suffering from a disorder that makes me scared of blank spaces in art. Ah, mea culpa. See for yourself -

You can also see Princila's paint-splash guy on the lower panel. AnonyMouse is yet to be added.

Incidentally I rode down to Tulsi Pipe Road the next night because I just couldn’t resist taking one more look. While all the other paintings in our corner were intact and looking quite brilliant in the night, I was most dismayed to find that Setto’s imaginative pink piggy in a suit had been splashed with a dab of red paint running down from the pig’s nose. Agitated, I spoke to him and told him about it. I was quite unprepared to hear him chuckle and say that he wished he had been there when it was done, he’d have shot a video. I asked him how he could possibly feel that way, I felt so bad when I saw it vandalized. Very wisely and oh so cooly he replied,

Hmmm… its graffiti. You know the fact someone did that makes me happy, coz that was what the party needed. Something unorganized…chaotic…the whole scene was too much like a ’slumming’ party. Whoever did that is adding another layer to the image..and whoever follows him is doing so too.

Hmm, I wonder who the inspiration for the piggy face was...

Hmm, that’s food for thought. That is what street art is about I guess. And that’s what this city is about. Layers over layers. Colour and cheating, fights and fun, friends and vandals, silliness and talent. It’s just Mumbai.

Some other posts about the Wall Project:

Jhayu – “On Dirty Walls, Sundays and Stained Fingers”

Punk Polka Dots – “When India Takes 2 Steps Forward..”

Aditya (on Facebook Notes) – “Food, Drink, Writing And The Wall Project”

Deepa – “The Wall Project August 15, 2009″

*All the photographs in this piece have been taken by Wanderblah, Jhayu, Spitphyre and Aditya.

This sounds like a damn fine idea to me. Thus far, street art in Mumbai has been restricted to badly painted promotions for local businesses or gruesome posters of B- and C-grade flicks. There is the occasional defacing with a local gang or two hoping to steal some glory for themselves by spray-painting obscene words on school walls and building compounds. But I have full faith in Mumbai. We are after all, the commercial capital, the center of the world’s largest film industry and home to the story of the Slumdog Millionaire. We are nothing else if not dreamers and productive ones at that. What else does one need for art?

Photographers – this is should also be a good opportunity for some fantastic cityscapes.

Okay and I also have to say this. I haven’t visited this location recently but I’m guessing this is the wall running along the station since it is the only continuous stretch of wall along that road. From what I remember, the sidewalk isn’t exactly clean and neither is the wall, having been used as it has, as a public toilet for far too long. But I’m not going to let that deter me and I hope you won’t either. Come dressed in old clothes and sensible shoes and nose-clips if necessary. Beautification isn’t always pretty work. And art is often messy. But it should be fun!

So here’s a call to everyone who’s in the city – pick up a brush and a pot of paint or two and meet me at Tulsi Pipe road on 15th August. Let’s paint this town red (and blue and yellow and green and magenta and lilac and black and…you get the picture :-D ).

And here are the details as I received them:

ABOUT
The Wall Project, a humble project that started out with a few enthusiastic people, is growing to be a bigger, better project. It was an initiative to add visual elements of colour, form and texture to a space, to make the area more alive and generate a feeling among people who pass by it daily.

This process allows one to be more observant about the spaces we use and move within and how we can use various art forms in the public sphere to generate an interest in the minds of our daily human lives. The Wall Project in its own way tries to start a conversation, with no political or religious attachments.

THE GREAT WALL OF MUMBAI

The Wall Project along with the Municipal Corporation of Mumbai is initiating painting sessions on the Tulsi Pipe Road, stretching from Mahim to Dadar running along the Western Railway line in Mumbai. The first phase starts on the 15th -16th August 2009, 0800 HRS onwards.

CANVAS
- look for an arrow indicating the start point on the Walls of Tulsi Pipe Road, (closer to Mahim(West) Railway station) And we could begin painting in that direction.
- it would be nice to come prepared with a thought about what you would like to paint and how much wall space you will require.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE
- its open to all. show up on 15th/16th August, 08:00am – 08:00pm and paint your style.
- if you are apprehensive about painting all by yourself then you could assist people who are painting.
- you could come as a group (friends, family etc) with hopefully a constructive idea and paint it.

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND
* no adverts, no religious writings on the wall, hopefully no political slogans, no foul language.

* there is a limited amount of paint supplies on location, so early birds…

* being a weekend/national holiday some paint/hardware shops may be shut or close shop early, so you would want to check on what you require in advance.

** clean up around you once your wall is complete

All further updates will be on THE WALL PROJECT group on FACEBOOK.

If you have any queries please do not hesitate to write in at – info@thewallproject.com

Hope to c u there.

The Wall Project Team
www.thewallproject.com

Pedder Road in the city is one of the busiest thoroughfares. Not only for local traffic but also for suburban commuters connecting to points in South Bombay.

This protest was nothing but a tamasha that the parents and kids resorted to so that they get some media coverage. Ironically this happened on the same day that Omar Abdullah resigned. So the hoped for TV coverage didnt happen as they wouldve loved.

What pisses me off is the reasons and the modus operandi of these very selfish parents. The school wants to demolish the building because it is unsafe for occupancy. They are moving the children to another building a little distance away. The building has been inspected by three independent structural engineers who all agree that is is unsafe. However the parents still want the school to keep the building open and let their children study in this unsafe building.

The parents allege that the school is trying to shunt out the lower fee-paying SSC division to some other building and use this plot to build a fancy high fee-paying Int’l division school.

The controversy started last year when the school management decided to permanently shift SSC students to a new location on D N Road in Fort, as they wanted to demolish the existing building at Hughes Road for IGCSE and IB Board. Parents approached the HC against decision and won the case in July.

On June 4, the school management had circulated a notice to parents that school would restart on June 29 at building in D N Road, Fort. The school, however, did not starts as the matter was pending in court [link]

If this is correct and I am sure there is some truth to it, then take this to court, get a stay order and pursue it through legal means. Don’t resort to uncivilized hooligan tactics.

The police stood there for the most part and could not do much as they said kids were involved and therefore they could not use any means to disperse the crowd. I guess they meant tear gas et al.

The parents took shelter behind the children and held the city and lakhs of people to ransom.

What is more appalling is that students were encouraged to do crazy things like climb up on the front of buses etc as this picture shows.

This also sends a very wrong message to children, the adults of tomorrow. It teaches them that taking the law into your own hands is the recourse to all problems and loutish, roughish behavior is the way to go.

Image Copyrights Mid-Day

Mahafreed Irani, a journalist with Times of India and a friend from the blog/twitter/facebook world has a first person account on her blog.

The sealink has been a long time in the making, having faced some setbacks and delays as well. It has been a part of the grand plan for Mumbai for so long that it has almost made a mark in local lingo by now (Yeah, I’ll get a promotion by the time that damn sealink gets made, maybe then I’ll be able to afford a car too!).

Most Mumbaikers have seen its grow, inch by agonizing inch on the horizon, from each direction. Just last year, I looked out at the impressive seaview from the window of a friend whose Mahim flat faces the then under-construction sealink and said,

Whatever is taking them that long??!! There’s just another inch to go!

After much fanfare, the sealink was inaugurated by Sonia Gandhi last morning and thrown open to the general public at 7 a.m. There will be a Rs.50 toll to traverse the sealink but that becomes functional only as of next Monday. So for the next few days, you can expect most Mumbaikers to derive full paisa vasool rides, riding Mumbai’s first ever sealink.

Quite fortunately (for me) I had an appointment in town that same morning. Fortunate I say because I (like many suburbanites) detest the painful commute into town, even less by road. What a stroke of luck to have a reason to go into town on the very day the sealink was inaugurated!

So I nagged dad into turning off into Bandra reclamation, shushing his incessant doomsday prophesies that the sealink would only add to commute time and what was so great about that damn bridge anyway, it’s taken long enough to come up and blocked Mumbai’s strained resources as it is.

In a few minutes, I was ready to jump out of the car and dive for cover as we ran smack-dab into the middle of the kind of traffic that makes road-rage seem like a pardonable offense, not punishable by law. I think every Western suburbanite must have been on that road to Worli today, whether or not they wanted to go to town!!!

I actually saw a few cars take U-turns and head back out, presumably to get to their destinations, the old-fashioned Mumbai way.

But as we inched forward and the high beams of the sealink came into view, my spirits surged and even my father ceased his complaining and grudgingly took out his own phone to take a picture.

We passed an impressive-looking toll-naka. Oh okay, I know there’s nothing impressive about a toll-naka, I’ve seen the one at Mankhurd and what about that huge one leading out to Mumbai-Pune expressway that I passed, not three days ago?

It still was a momentous occasion, for we were on the brink of breaking new ground. As we passed, I’m rather afraid to say that the insofar well-laned traffic just sort of melded into itself and became one sea of cars going helter-skelter. The road curves a bit before it touches the sealink and the lanes just sort of get lost in each other. The authorities are just going to have to do something about that if they don’t want to face choke-ups every morning just before the Bandra end of the sealink.

Very near the sea, I saw a flock of crows flying around frantically and wondered aloud,

Why are there so many birds around? What are they so agitated about?

Dad said that perhaps there was an colony of nests in that place which had so far been pretty secluded and undisturbed. Displacement was a sobering thought to start the trip on, but well needs must.

Once we actually got closer and closer to the sealink, I could feel the anticipation electric in the air. Cars slowing down, audible gasps, people zooming their camera lenses and phones, excitement was rife.

I can’t even begin to describe what the journey was like. I am sure, in a short few days I’ll become as accustomed to it as the regular train and road commute. But today, this first trip was special. It was the realization of the great Mumbai dream. We were riding over water. All my hitherto unvoiced fears that the bridge would give way were blown away in the cool breeze. The bridge is rock-solid (not at all like Lakshman Jhula, ma, you can stop worrying, it won’t sway in the wind) and it would otherwise feel just like riding on a concrete road, except there’s the sea on both sides.

What an odd feeling to turn to one’s left and see Mumbai, the city, the familiar buildings and roads on the horizon but on the wrong side and from so far away!

I saw a media van pass in the opposite direction on the clear Worli-to-Bandra lane, with a journalist standing out of one of the windows holding a mike, and a cameraman standing out of the opposite side shooting her. It was a funny sight and I’m only sorry I didn’t have a chance to shoot it.

The image below shows the proud and cheering workers who were lined up to watch the first few travellers on the sealink. What a moment of glory it would have been for them!

The couple in the Qualis next to mine were carrying balloons and traversed the entire length of the sealink with their balloons held aloft and flying out of the windows. Viva, the spirit of Mumbai!

We touched terra firma again at the Worli seaface end. I’m rather afraid this means the end of those long, wonderful soujourns ending in masala milk and sandwich. With the incoming and outbound traffic to the sealink, the seaface is bound to become thoroughfare and lose the charm it has.

We’re losing a few lovely spots and the traffic problem may not really be solved. But the experience of riding over the sea is something every Mumbaiker should have. This link has been far too long in coming. In the larger picture, perhaps easier access will level out some of the differences of Mumbai’s very own caste system?

I can’t tell just yet. My head is still spinning with the adrenalin rush of yesterday morning. I really feel like I’ve been part of a grand day in Mumbai’s history, almost like the fall of the Berlin wall. It is a big thing for this city and as a Mumbaiker, I feel really proud.