History
Friday* evening is when the city comes alive with a vengeance. As if it were sleeping the rest of the time. But Fridays are a frenzy of partying and drinking and laughing too loud. In a frantic attempt to drown out the panic of life running out faster than we can make sense of it.
One such Friday, I stayed in late at work. Of course the work never ends. I suppose I could have left earlier. Met a friend for coffee. Or another for drinks. Or walked down the sea face. Or photographed flamingos in flight. Or watched Aamir Khan’s debut performance as a director. Instead I took a walk.
Behind my office is an old building that used to be a factory. Now one half of it has been converted into a glossy glass-and-steel office complex. The other half is used as a parking lot. On a late Friday evening, there weren’t too many cars around. I strolled around in the semi-darkness. Not even a breeze…unusually warm, even for a Mumbai December.
In between the buildings is a long stretch of concrete road. No vehicles at that hour. No employees walking out of the building. Just the stars above on an unusually clear night, visible between asbestos sheets on one side and curved steel girders on the other.
I stepped into one of the open doorways. I wondered if this is what it felt to walk around in an old castle.
Heavy cylindrical pipes overhead, solid pillars and rusted metal staircases at the corners. Hundreds of busy feet must have walked this floor thousands of times over the years. Machines being oiled, a worker showing another one how to pull a lever, a foreman looking at a sheaf of papers, sparks in another corner. Things were made here, lives were built here, dreams were dreamt and realised…or shattered here. Hundreds and thousands of them. Don’t they say ‘put your heart into your work’? Those milling masses must have put their very souls into their work. I still feel them.
Mumbai was built on industry, on factories, on the hard labour of workers. They made this the city of dreams, the commercial capital of the country. The grit and hard-headedness that is taught to us as a way of life now were the lessons that they handed down from lives of unrelenting labour. They were my true ancestors. I haven’t forgotten.
Incidentally this post was written almost a year ago. The building in the photograph does not look that way anymore, since it has been converted into yet another gleaming office complex. The mills shut down long ago and now with their buildings being revamped, it feels like the tombs of Mumbai’s ancestry are being razed away.
* From a Friday long, long ago.
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Or you may want to listen to this podcast episode: Flamingos
Hey R,
Was wondering if we could feature this post in our Around The Blog page on Monday… Please let me know if you’d be ok with that… shakti.dna (at) gmail.. (also @shaaqt on twitter :P)
@Shakti: Written back to you. Check your email.
@ Banno: History and nostalgia are unaffordable luxuries in Mumbai now.
@ Pragni: I agree with your last statement and I’m profoundly touched that you apply it to my writing.
@ Biju: Actually its not. It is dark and quiet, unlike the rest of the city. It feels almost..peaceful. Graveyards do too, I suppose.
@ Kalpana: It did. Life moved on. The building in that photograph will probably be a bustling office complex or (worse) a mall space soon enough.
@ A: 😮 You must forgive me but I met a lot of people at the festival and didn’t realize one of them was a reader/fellow-blogger.
Sorry for duplicate comment, it showed an error initally…remove the same.
As last idea: When Rajini Isn’t Miffed…
Most of the old-wordly charm any vintage building brings in is irrespective of its design and construction…isn’t it? They stand by us in amusement, freezing our sense of dimensions, and yet force us to imagine their fleeting life-stories…as if constantly dialoguing with us in that coughing grand-fatherly tone: “In our generation life was more evolving, son…” Isn’t it.
PS: Nice to ‘meet’ you at the NGMA Workshop last Sunday afternoon… 🙂
As last idea: When Rajini Isn’t Miffed…
Most of the old-wordly charm any vintage building brings in is irrespective of its design and construction…isn’t it? They stand by us in amusement, freezing our sense of dimensions, and yet force us to imagine their fleeting life-stories…as if constantly dialoguing with us in that coughing grand-fatherly tone “In our generation life was more evolving, son…”
PS: Nice to ‘meet’ you at the NGMA workshop, last Sunday afternoon… 🙂
As last idea: When Rajini Isn’t Miffed…
Agree with Biju…I thought something quiet and sinister was about to happen..
Agree with Biju…I thought something quiet and sinister was about to happen..
Kalpanas last idea: For you..On Valentine Day
Lady you have got guts 😛 The place looks spooky enough for me to venture in 😯
Happy Valentine’s Day and keep blogging!
Biju Mathewss last idea: The Rape of the Women’s Morality by Charles Darwin
@pragini: amen!
Posts like these, make me long for Mumbai all over again. Make me want to be one those lone warriors who walk the unknown streets of Mumbai and the unlit lanes.
Make me want to be there, where the heart thrives, soul actually lives.
I guess a truly amazing piece of writing is that which makes someone reading long for the things described, and makes them want to write again too 🙂
Those mills, and their chimneys were such a powerful reminder of our not so distant past. They also reminded me of how an entire industry was wiped out by irresponsible unionism.
Yet, however impractical it may be to keep empty buildings around when space is at such a premium, we have lost something.
The description of your walk through the factory on a starry night is haunting.