ewf

i drove down the largely uncharted eastern waterfronts of the city yesterday after dropping my mother off at padmatais house. the design cell had documented the area extensively and everytime foreigners comes we take them to display (as chaitanya had once said) the “underbelly” of the city.

padmatai lives in one of the fancy high rises that are being built in the area amid the taxi cab populated antop hill- slum redevelopment and salt pan encroachment. all the way south from there a landscape of distinct precincts- most surreal and desolate. to think less than 10 minutes from them the mad development in the MIll LAnds or the markets of the "native" town.

first wadala with its public housing projects, then petroleum containers and warehouses for cotton with the old train lines that used to carry goods from the docks to the rest of the country- and the railway stations alongside. further to the south slums all along the edge of the road in between the crevices and clinging to the edge of buildings and compound walls of buildings empty of all that used to once be the activity centers of the city and are today merely shells.

the big 'hit' place in the belt among the foreigners is always the slums at the lakdi and hay bunder areas and the ship breaking yard at darukhana with its metal scrap selling shops. very photogenic. but this time no photos of that. instead some from the main road through this landscape waiting to become real estate.

dosti acres - antop hill


wadala housing and water tanks

trucks and tanks

warehouses

tracks on the road

railway station

the dockland road

the 'elphinstone' estates. empty shells with slums on all sides.