I tend to get rather impatient with those who lament the loss of the ‘spirit of Mumbai’, or bemoan that something has changed in the city. Something always changes, everywhere and every time, darlings: c’est la vie. As for the city’s spirit, I think we too often mistakenly equate it with resilience (Mumbai recovers so fast after floods, terrorism, communal violence, and so on, because either it is “like this only” or because it has no choice) whereas what it should really be celebrating is its clever jugaadu nature.
Jugaad is often used to stand for the capability of producing cheap, inferior-quality alternatives. But I prefer to think of the word in terms of the potentiality it contains — the ability to do a lot more with less, and the immense creative energy that gets released when one has to be frugal. There are jugaad revolutions happening all around us in this metropolis, and it totally turns me on to go to work each morning and be part of them.
Parmesh Shahani A cultural renaissance
Let us consider some of the players in the cultural ecosystem, one of the worlds I operate in. Parel has two new cool spaces that have come up recently: Sitara Studio for performances and jam sessions, and Matterden, an independent film showcase at Deepak Talkies. In nearby Mahalaksmi, architect Anuradha Parikh has launched G5A, a community and cultural centre inside a repurposed Laxmi Mills warehouse. The Hive in Bandra’s Chuim village is a bungalow that houses stand-up comedy, theatre, music and film, alongside a co-working space and a café. In Borivali, artists Shreyas Karle and Hemali Bhuta run CONA for art practitioners, students, and their neighbourhood. And in Vikhroli, our Godrej India Culture Lab has been thriving ever since its inception five years ago.
So, I’m rather perplexed by the moaning and groaning when, in fact, we’re in the midst of a cultural renaissance. One way of trying to understand it is to consider who it is that is doing the lamenting. Is it the increasing irrelevant SoBo crowd that I like to tease by calling ‘so boring’? This would be understandable because they are certainly being marginalised. Most of the action in Mumbai (business or culture) has shifted to what was the erstwhile periphery, and losing power does make people cranky.
But for the rest of us, the suburbs have widened the cultural landscape of the city. Helped by infrastructural facilities like the new Metro that provides east-west connectivity, the suburbs are no longer margins, or surplus spaces for cultural footnotes. They are finally key nodes of activity in their own right. And residents of these suburbs, like those in the wonderful Vikhroli, aren’t lamenting. They are, in fact, rejoicing in the ‘spirit of Mumbai’, through the transgender dance performances, feminist film festivals, and more, that they witness regularly.
The entire city is now an experimental playground. The trendy biennale format has been re-imagined in Dharavi as a health-oriented community event. At the last edition, residents collaborated alongside established artists. It was the most exciting art event I’ve been to in Mumbai. In Vikhroli, we gave the art pop-up a local touch by locating our two mammoth Culture Lab events in Godrej factories. There are constant public art takeovers across the city, such as the mural painted in Bandra of Dadasaheb Phalke by the Bollywood Art Project.
Sameera Iyengar and Sanjna Kapoor’s Junoon, a stage for theatre, shifts location between the Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum in Byculla and the Somaiya School in Vidyavihar, and takes its community everywhere it goes. Mumbai has multiple film festivals — MAMI is the most famous, but to me, equally important are the Navi Mumbai film festival and the Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival. I could go on, describing the vibrant live music scene, the innovative stand-up comedy circuit, and the efforts of creative producers such as Vijay Nair and his OML team, to catalyse both of these, but I think you get the point by now.
What excites me further is that the city’s cultural scene is not just moving outward, but it is also moving towards greater inter-sectionality. Elite high-culture institutions, with rules, regulations, procedures, and strict codes of who gets in and not are ceding ground to jugaadu collaborations between companies, individuals, not-for-profit organisations, online communities, and other stakeholders in society. This kind of inter-sectionality democratises culture and creates a fertile ground for creativity to flourish.
Not enough funding
Now, I’m not trying to paint an overtly rosy picture for you. Culture is severely underfunded in this city. Unlike other great cities, Mumbai doesn’t have significant civic budgets for art and culture, and the authorities seem to try their best to create roadblocks instead of bridges. So everything that happens in the city happens despite severe constraints. Cultural practitioners have different sustenance models, and survival is not easy, or guaranteed. This is why, more than ever, I feel we need to celebrate all those who exhibit chutzpah in this city.
Sponsors are either found (with the Mahindra Blues or Jio MAMI, for instance) or not (with the Control+ALT+Delete music festival, which has made an art form out of crowdfunding); permissions are sought, and often got at the last moment (with the several editions of Kala Ghoda); and all kinds of drama-baazi takes place, but things happen. And when they do, they are world-class, magical, and give you goose bumps. To me, Mumbai continues to remain as the coolest creative and cultural experiment in the world — a place where great ideas come together to rub up against each other.
Does Mumbai need more money? Hell, yeah. We’ll hustle and it’ll come. Could it do with more time and attention from the authorities or the general public? Sure. Its jugaadu culture players will take anything that you can give it. That’s how we roll. But keep your negativity and laments about the death of this beautiful crazy city we love to yourselves, please. I’m choosing to stand in the Geeta Dutt corner, singing gloriously that, in fact, Ae dil hai aasaan jeena yahan, suno mister, suno bandhu yeh hai Bombay meri jaan .
(Parmesh Shahani is an author and the head of the Godrej India Culture Lab.)
