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Walking through the city
Mumbai’s streets are a visual proof that people use their feet all the time. Walking sometimes reveals how relative notions of distances can be
It is only when rains (where are they?) debilitate the city that we discover the possibility of navigating the crowded streets on our feet. People have travelled huge distances wading through gutter water, making them associate the act exclusively with civic breakdowns. However, several research findings indicate that many commuters in Mumbai actually walk to work on a daily basis. That’s because most of them live in informal settlements and are relatively closer to work.
In fact, Mumbai’s streets are a visual proof that people use their feet all the time. Few roads or streets are free of walkers. The presence of roadside hawkers indicates the vibrancy of the streets in this regard. One of the most successful infrastructure projects that civic authorities undertook in recent times are the walkways near Bandra and footover bridges across roads and highways. The aim may have been to keep people off roads for the easier movement of cars. But they have helped, nevertheless. Walking sometimes reveals how relative notions of distances can be. It was only after suffering traffic jams – that lasted two hours between Girgaum and Prabhadevi during evening rush hour – that made me realise that the same distance could be traversed in precisely that much time by walking as well. Of course, that stretch included two great promenades – the Haji Ali and Worli Sea Face roads. Walks have been regularly incorporated in the city’s tourist agendas. Rahul Mehrotra and Sharada Dwivedi’s Fort Walks is an excellent guide through the city’s colonial past. Enterprising guides have developed the ‘slum tours’ through Dharavi. PUKAR, Mumbai’s very own innovative urban research collective, uses walks as a method of inquiry. Walks become part of the research process. Recently, members of the centre held a special walk through the erstwhile mill areas of Mumbai, providing participants a glimpse of the rapidly transforming neighbourhood. This was done as part of a global event in the memory of an American urbanist Jane Jacobs who used the idea of the walk as a way of reclaiming neighbourhoods for its residents. It’s a sure way of making places safer without acts of surveillance, if you simply learn to walk the streets. Of course, in a Mumbaikar’s life, it may be impractical to do so regularly. In many ways, it sounds almost improbable. But already, the infamous traffic jams – especially in the suburbs – have transformed several commuters into regular walkers. A bit more investment in the basic infrastructure for this activity will surely bring in several more and make walking a pleasurable activity. Walks have been overtly political acts as well, especially in the form of demonstrations and, of course, through Gandhi’s legendary marches. The political dimension of the walks merges with its cultural one – becoming often a ‘carnivalesque’ reclaiming of public spaces. And while most Mumbaikars would baulk at this idea – given how impatient they are with any act that slows them down – the one time of the year they find themselves joining in, is round the corner. When the elephant-headed God makes his devotees – who love walking to him to Siddhivinayak every Tuesday – dance along during the chaturthi celebrations. For several years, one has had mixed feelings about this great celebratory invasion of Mumbai’s streets. I have found myself walking through miles of static traffic with thunderous music and – after exorcising the bourgeois impatience of a regular commuter – even danced along when a subversive techno parade joined in a procession in a true spirit of the carnival. Maybe, this Ganpathi festival Mumbaikars can join in by politicising the already politicised event a bit more and make it a celebration of the act of walking and reclaiming the streets of the city in another way. * Rahul Srivastava, a PUKAR associate and founder member of URBZ, specialises in urban issues, and writes on traffic, trains, illegal construction, Mithi, monsoon... in short all things that make Mumbai go grrr
* The infamous traffic jams – especially in the suburbs – have transformed several commuters into regular walkers
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