Walking at twilight through the monsoon glades of Mumbai’s 103 sq. km. national park, I stopped to allow an army of scuttling crabs cross the tar road leading to the Tulsi lake. As I moved on, I noticed a slight movement some 30 metres ahead of me. There, nonchalant as only a wild leopard can be, was an exquisite spotted apparition, cub in tow. I stood stock-still, camera snuggly packed in my waterproof backpack, as the cat threw me a casual glance and vanished within seconds into its jungle that was the source of Mumbai’s purest water. When I reached the ‘Log Hut’ on the shore of the Tulsi Lake, I saw A.R. Bharati, former Director of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, staring out over the silver waters, surrounded by thick green forests. Over a steaming cup of tea we forgot the many problems that besieged the park and our city, preferring to focus instead on the magic of the world’s most magnificent national park, the green heart of Mumbai. Both of us were preparing for a major presentation we were to make on urban forests to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Durban. We sat late into the night, that day over a decade ago, and as we wound our way back to the ‘real’ world outside he said to me: “Bittu, we should start by telling the world that we can fit over 30 of New York’s sanitised Central Parks that its citizens are so proud of into our one single national park.”
Quite a thought.
Mumbai’s azure coastline is many times more impressive than San Francisco’s. I sat one day in the quiet embrace of the mangrove creeks of Vikhroli, which the late Sorabji Godrej jealously protected as his family’s heritage his entire life. He had arranged for me to be escorted by boat through the magical mudflats and towering mangrove forest next to the sprawling Godrej industrial complex. In the waters I saw a cornucopia of biodiversity ranging from mangrove snakes and crabs, to white-bellied sea eagles and flamingos. Just a touch inland by boat, and the sight of over two million migratory birds awaits those who venture into the Thane Creek.
The word ‘magical’ does little justice to the reality of the gifts with which nature has blessed Mumbai. For centuries the Koli people took their sustenance from these living waters and many still continue to do so. From atop Malabar Hill, the vision of a bay that stretches from the golden sands of Chowpatty, with its thousands of snow-white gulls in winter, is enough to drive one to poetry! Ditto the seas off Haji Ali and the now-wounded Mahim Bay.
I love this city of ours. But not everyone does.
For many it’s merely a ticket to financial aspirations that nature has no ability to provide. Like spoiled rich children, we take our blessings for granted: our balmy weather, our protected harbour, the garland of mangroves that serves as a living green armour against sea surges and storms, silver beaches that rival the finest in the world, the vision of 30,000 chiffon-pink flamingos in Airoli, Navi Mumbai, which people from distant lands must travel all the way to Lake Nukuru in East Africa to witness.
It is this blessed city that we are grinding to dust under the hammer of misguided ambition. I have served on my country’s Environmental Expert Committees for almost two decades. Sadly, instead of inspiring other global capitals to emulate India’s live-with-nature attitudes, we want to be like Shanghai, or Singapore, or London. We are not those. Hopefully we never will be, for they consume too much, waste too much. Worse, while trying to be them we just might lose out being who we are: a peaceful, life-loving, nature-worshiping lot whose ability to live happy with less has given rise to traditions that Mohandas Gandhi advised the world to imbibe from us.
But let me switch tracks.
I miss the friendship and wisdom of the late Shyam Chainani, founder of the Bombay Environment Action Group (BEAG). He fought to protect the city he loved to the day he died, but never forgot to celebrate
the city too. Sitting at the Bombay Gym bar one evening, looking out at the silhouette of the incredible skyline that included the Victoria Terminus and the Bombay Municipal Corporation building he said darkly: “Bittu they keep asking for more buildings above ground, but don’t think of the sewers they need underground, or the schools, hospitals and open spaces without which life would be hell. Yet, we must soldier on, though the writing is on the wall. Greed and ignorance dominates decision-making and Bombay will probably be unrecognisable in a few short decades. Both our living and non-living heritage such as the mangroves, mudflats of the Thane Creek and the national park at Borivli look like they could be lost.”
I tried often to lure him out with me to watch flamingos, or walk through SGNP, or just go out birding, but his response, delivered with a smile, was affectionately gruff: “You do all that. I go sailing and see lots of dolphins and birds and that’s enough of the outdoors for me. I have no time to do other things.”
To fulfil a promise I once made to Shyam — not to give up on Mumbai — let me list a smattering of issues we often discussed, together with the solutions we agreed were imperative and practical. What follows is not exhaustive, but readers should get the drift. Both he and I dreamed of a city that would be child-friendly, elderly-friendly, bird-friendly and people-friendly. Where past heritage and present imperatives could coexist. While we both identified problems no one wanted to deal with, we believed innately that Mumbai, though damaged, was not beyond repair.
Climate Change: This is the big one. By some estimates, in the next decade virtually all of Mumbai’s infrastructure will need to be reinvented. Our railway lines are at sea level, as are our roads. Most buildings are not designed to take the battering that sea surges and storms will throw at us. We are a coastal city and we will soon be impacted by extreme climatic events. And these will be interspersed by chronic water shortages. The good thing is we have the technology and ability to temper the worst impacts of climate change, provided we are able to persuade our planners to desist from deadly habits and start thinking of designing a future-ready city.
Pollution and Health: Were it not for the sea, Mumbai would be much worse off than Delhi. Why? Because decision-makers want to invest in facilities for cars, while starving public transport of much-needed investments. Because toxic industries that benefit a few are encouraged at the cost of the health of millions. And because the rich and famous mistakenly imagine that they are going to be protect us from diseases and problems of ‘the poor’. With every passing day, our immune systems are being weakened by toxic chemicals, while the vectors that invade our bodies are being trained by rising temperatures and humidity to take on forms that our body’s self-defence mechanisms cannot deal with.
While educating the young to live healthier, more active, outdoor lives, to boost their immune systems, we need to design Mumbai’s new infrastructures to accommodate wider, tree-lined, shaded footpaths, and cycle tracks, with safe-drinking-water fountains that can be used to refill bottles thus eliminating the need for plastic bottled water altogether. Benches and pavements that easily offer access for wheel chair-ridden people, the elderly and sightless would be terrific for the able-bodied too. This done, we would all soon opt to walk short distances, freeing road space, reducing air pollution and improving our own health. The concept of taking over streets on Sundays and creating no-cars-allowed pedestrian plazas sounds like heaven.
Public Transport: Crowded trains and buses are an embarrassment. Possibly 95 per cent of Mumbai’s citizens are forcibly crammed into public transport facilities that should ideally have five times the existing capacity.
This is not because we have no money to improve public transport, but because lobbies worked hard to ensure that private transport was subsidised and encouraged instead.
We need better trains, buses, and footpaths. Trains need investments in world-class signalling equipment, longer, safer platforms.
Who will pay, did I hear someone say? Well… if we follow the London and Singapore examples and make the parking of private cars prohibitively expensive, even at night outside buildings, I rather suspect much of the money will come from the rich who would prefer to continue using private cars.
We have other options. We could offer petrol stations extra FSI to create public car parking facilities above their existing spaces. Second cars owned by one family should be prohibitive to buy and park. Third cars even more. The taxes earned would easily pay for improved train and bus services. In the process we would probably be able to eliminate budgets reserved for more flyovers, trans-harbour links and coastal roads that cannot possibly benefit more than five per cent of Mumbai’s population.
Power: The Tata Research Nuclear Reactor in Trombay poses the greatest single threat to the city of Mumbai, in exchange for an embarrassingly small amount of electricity. It needs to be decommissioned. But no one thought of budgeting any money for this vital imperative. If there is a meltdown here, it would make Chernobyl look like a teddy bear’s picnic. Bringing power in from Dahanu’s coal-fired thermal plants, or Enron’s Guhagar embarrassment is no solution either. And Chandrapur’s Western Coalfields mines are already gobbling up tiger habitats.
So what is Mumbai to do?
To begin with, imagine every roof fitted with solar panels, delivering cheap power to housing societies. Add to that a chain of windmills stretching north to south off the coast, maintained and serviced with help from the fishing community, which could help us create artificial reefs between the turbine towers. The power generated would be fed directly into electric buses, trains and cars.
We could up the ante with investments in efficiency. Cut taxes on LED bulbs and electric cars (which would be exempt from congestion surcharge when we decide to put that vital imperative into play). I’d go a step further and ask architects to design all-new buildings, with the structures themselves acting as climate control devices that use convection to draw cool subsurface air to ventilate the insides. Now imagine rooftops, the largest available open spaces in Mumbai, growing herbs and vegetables, which would not only be fresh and organic, but would also cut the number of trucks plying through city streets. Taking a leaf out of the Moghuls’ book, we could line streets with fruit trees so anyone could lay claim to the fruit, bird, bat or human!
For our children
I oscillate between elation and despair about Mumbai, blessed with natural riches, but being steadily brought to its knees by relentless planners who find no pleasure in birdsong, or earth-smells, or pure water sources. Even 10-year-old kids know today that sea levels are rising, cyclonic wind speeds will soon approach 200+ kmph.
Buildings that are being planned today on reclaimed lands along the coast in Mumbai will be the first victims of climate change. I fully expect a repeat of the Mithi disaster, with the Bandra Kurla complex buildings flooded to their second floors.
Instead of protecting citizens from such imminent threats, should we be thinking of filling up salt pan lands, which are little more than giant ‘bathtubs’ really, that hold millions of tons of tidal waters? Between plans for new ports and airports through reclamation, we will end up flooding not just Navi Mumbai and Sewri, but virtually every adjacent low-lying area in the city.
Mumbai can be fixed in precisely the way that an alcoholic or heroin addict can be fixed. By rehabilitating the patient. By preventing drug peddlars from accessing him or her. By changing attitudes.
In my experience the best way to do this is to start with the young. Young children and young parents who have a greater investment in tomorrow and a greater legitimacy than the ill-intentioned, arrogant and ignorant ones who have taken us all for granted for much too long.
Gandhiji asked of Nehru that he only implement such plans as would benefit those on the lowest rung of society: the poor and disenfranchised.
Today, given today’s climate realities and the challenges ahead, Gandhiji would suggest that not one project, not one plan, not one budget should be cleared unless it was established beyond doubt that it would benefit our children, their water, food and climate security. Our time spans must go beyond the next quarter, the next election, to the year 2050, by which time 90 per cent of the powerful ones who hold sway over our lives today will have passed to whence they came.
Do this and Mumbai will fix itself.
