cbd belapur

was at cbd belapur after a really long time today. spent some time in a potential office space on the top floors of the triangular great eastern building. i have always had a bit of a soft corner for new bombay or navi mumbai. i grew very fond of its old fashioned planning norms and its naïve belief in the banality of the plan as a tool of greater common good while working on the documentation for the new bombay monograph.

correa did have the right idea when the city was planned, but it has had its share of bad luck- or lack of faith. when it first opened no one wanted to move there from the island city, least of the government who conceived it. instead nariman point was built for all the offices needing space right in south bombay- coutesy a corrupt governemtn and even more corrupt builder lobby. then as the cbd was about to take off again and all the monstrous buildings of the early 90s were being built there was bandra kurla complex and then the mill lands that started opening up. the cbd stayed dead. no one in their right mind would want to travel to a place that was so difficult to get to- this was before the railway lines.

new bombay became a college town catering to the ridiculous demand for engineering colleges in the city. that was when i had carried out the survey- all by myself armed with badly printed plans of the city and a pen- me in my red maruti car. i loved those trips. down every lane and unpaved path looking at what existed and what did not. there was a ghostliness to the city. as if the people had been disappeared. the cbd was perhaps the most scary. huge stalinesque railway stations, empty parking lots with lone stray dogs ambling along in the baking heat of late summer on asphalt. no one lived there. no one worked. the trees had not grown yet and the dust lifted off with every gust of the wind. the city was waiting for someone. even today these buildings are far from full. while the rest of the city seems to have suddenly experienced a sudden surge of development (courtesy reliance and other companies) the cbd is still almost completely empty. no wonder. the office space we saw today was so tackily made. terrible flooring, badly maintained interiors, impossible to use spaces. and the building stands ominously in a landscape of hollow towers.

i also went to seawoods – hafeez contractors swanky apartment complex in nerul for non resident indians. cidco built this monstrosity and hoped to sell it off at exorbitant prices. naturally no one wanted to buy it because of the awful planning and the infinitesimal interior spaces. from the outside though the complex is all gross nouveau riche faux italianate with landscaped gardens with fountains and this attracted (naturally) reliance who has bought over a lot of it for its employees at the knowledge park close by.

the drive back on palm beach drive is beautiful- all the way from seawoods to the massive hulk of vashi railway station. the cleanliness of the planned is now stained and rotting. the only parts truly alive are the crowded and the messy - the markets of vashi.