Tales from the chawl

Writing in the 1930s, Patrick Geddes remarked that chawls were not meant for “housing, but warehousing people”. Severely criticised, these cramped spaces were created in the early 1900s to supply working-class housing to Mumbai as the city grew as an industrial hub. Built by mill owners and private builders, they consisted of a row of single rooms sharing a common veranda with common toilets.
Alternately vilified and celebrated, chawls were either seen as horrifyingly crowded or romanticised as havens of community life in books like P L Deshpande’s Batatyachi Chaal and films like Sai Paranjpye’s Katha.Whatever one’s viewpoint, however, chawl life has been essential to the social fabric and political development of this schizophrenic city.
Neera Adarkar, architect and urban researcher, who has worked with textile mill unions and co-authored One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices, an oral history of the mill workers of Girangaon, is very familiar with the chawl typology. Two years ago, she saw the need for a multidisciplinary book that documented chawl life and did not romanticise the issue with a sense of nostalgia. “I wanted the book to intersect with the issues we are grappling with today—analyse what should be preserved and what is obsolete,” she says. Although there has been plenty of fictional material on chawl life, particularly in Marathi and Gujarati, The Chawls Of Mumbai—Galleries Of Life combines many aspects—the built typology, the social and cultural space and the political movements that emerged from chawls.
An argument that runs through the book is that chawls are scattered through the city, cut across class, community and religion, and nurture multiple cultures. The opening piece by Adarkar looks at the difference between the blue-collared Girangaon chawls in the textile mill area and the white-collared Girgaum chawls that house workers in the service industry. Going beyond the particularities of this city, British scholar Colin Cunningham examines the paradigm of working-class housing internationally while Amrit Gangar writes on the depiction of chawls in Hindi cinema. Smruti Koppikar’s piece looks at the gendered aspects of the chawl, and examines how these places that were primarily created for migrant male workers were appropriated by women. On the visual side are the drawings done for Dev Benegal’s screenplay of Kiran Nagarkar’s book Ravan & Eddie, which is set in a chawl, and those of the different types of chawls by architect Rupali Gupte.
The shrinking of the political space as a result of the reduction of public spaces is one of the focuses of Chawls of Mumbai, which highlights the vibrant human exchange that lends value to this social typology. “These mundane typologies consisting of army barrack-like structures were transformed into active political, social and cultural spaces,” says Adarkar. The galleries and open spaces of the chawls serve as a microcosm for the cultural interactions of the city, which varied greatly in different localities. Born in Ghatkopar, celebrated artist Atul Dodiya was born and brought up in a chawl and continued to use his old family home as a studio until last year. He likens the social fabric of a chawl to living in a large joint family. “The mix of Marathi and Gujarati ethos has sharpened my creative lens. The open door environment keeps me from becoming too shut up in my ivory tower as an artist; it is a vibrant human experience,” he says. It is not just people’s belongings that spill out into the galleries of chawls but public dialogue too: Dalit poet Namdeo Dhasal writes of his experiences in Dhor Chawl in Golpitha where he witnessed the rumblings of political movements, participated in Dalit Panther meetings and watched great tamasha artists.
However, the book does not attempt to bypass the fact that chawls were often segregated on the lines of caste and community; Sameera Khan looks at the way in which chawl life changed drastically for Muslims after the riots of 1992-’93. “We don’t want to go overboard celebrating religious and community affiliations—the studies are meant to raise questions,” says Adarkar, who also asks what the term “world-class city”, much touted by those who want to change Mumbai, is supposed to mean. “What is its definition?” she asks. “Is it a nameless, spaceless product?”
As the decrepit chawls of Mumbai get demolished to make way for matchbox apartments of 225 sq ft, this uniquely Indian form of architecture is being dismissed without proper inspection. Adarkar critiques the lack of innovative choices in place of the chawl once it is demolished, “Today the choice is that you either live in unsafe, unhygienic conditions or move into these redeveloped towers. There isn’t anything in between,” she says. “I hope this book will throw up many other alternatives.”
Discussion at Jnanapravaha on Jan 25 at 6:30 p. For more details, email to.jnanapravaha @gmail.com