By Adya Shankar and Christine Rachel D’sa, School of Habitat Studies, TISS

At the entrance of Khushboo Chawl

Khushboo building, earlier known as Nageshwar chawl is around 125 years old, located at the core of Khotachiwadi. Several narrow lanes lead to it. Residents use the terms ‘building’ and ‘chawl’ interchangeably. The name of the chawl was changed to Khushboo building after its former owner Mr. Nageshwar sold the chawl to another family and moved to the suburbs. The building has changed owners three times. The current and third owner lives on one of the floors of this three-story structure.

Almost all the residents of the chawl agreed that not much has changed over the years. However one resident in particular claimed that twenty years ago some people were making illicit liquor in the neighbourhood. She used the word “dangerous” to refer to the wadi because of the kind of activities that were going on during that period. She also recalls that it wasn’t safe for women to venture out of their houses in the wadi after 6 in the evening. It was only after the police put a stop to these illegal activities that the wadi became a safe abode for the residents.

Side view of the chawl

Several residents spoke about the deteriorating condition of the chawl in the past. After MHADA undertook efforts to renovate the building by installing beams, the structure was reinforced and their housing condition significantly improved. Further, the residents also made some improvements to the interiors of their houses.

All ground floor residents share a common toilet. Water is an issue here like in most parts of the city. A couple of years back they would get 2 hours of water everyday which was sufficient for their use. But now they get only 1 hour of water and that too with very low pressure. One of our respondents blamed the new buildings that have come up as a cause for the reduced water supply and pressure.

Tenants of Khushboo building don’t pay much rent. The Rent Control Act which is still enforced in these parts of Mumbai has ensured that these tenants only pay Rs.50 to Rs.100 as rent per month. Their expenses are not much when it comes to the house. Not many people have sold houses to leave the building. According to some of the residents, not much has changed except for the fact that joint families have disintegrated into nuclear families. Mrs. Patil cites the example of her own family of fourteen that gradually moved out and now they are only six people staying in their house.

Narrow lane along the chawl

One interesting thing all the residents were very firm on was that Khotachiwadi was not a Gaothan. What made it distinct from gaothans in the city was the presence of buildings that gave it a more modern feel. They did not want their houses to be identified with village styled houses.

Life in the Chawl

What sets Khotachiwadi apart from the multitude of wadis in Girgaon is the number of festivals celebrated in the wadi and the fervour with which the community engages in the celebration of these festivals. Mrs. Patil and several others fondly spoke of the enthusiasm with which festivals such as Shravan, Govinda, Ganesh utsav, Holi, Sankranti, Navratri and Anand Mela are fêted. There is a Mandal in the wadi where everyone comes together to celebrate. Mrs. Baraskar chimes in by saying how they join in with the Catholics for the celebration for Christmas. In fact, last Christmas her elder son Bunty was made the Santa Claus. ‘In Kothachiwadi everybody knows everybody’ says Mrs. Patil with a big smile on her face.

While some of the residents live like one big family, there are others who prefer to lead more solitary lives. They do participate in the neighbourhood festivities, and like visiting other wadis as well and joining in the festivities of those wadis.

The most enthusiastic woman of the lot we met, Mrs. Baraskar, quickly rinsed her utensils and joined us at Mrs. Gothad’s house to share her views on Khotachiwadi. According to her, all the residents of Khotachiwadi, irrespective of whether they lived in bungalows or chawls knew each other very well. However the residents of the towers who are mostly Gujaratis and Jains were unknown to them. She specifically told us that they mixed with the Catholics but not with the Gujaratis and the Jains, who have come more recently.

Christine and Adya (TISS, left side) with the women of Khushboo Chawl

Mrs. Baraskar told us of an incident when the roof of her house collapsed on her son and husband. It was during trying times like these that her neighbours helped rescue Bunty and her husband from the debris and took them to the hospital. She asserted that none in her family would want to shift from Khotachiwadi. Even when her sons go to visit their cousins’ in the suburbs they long to come back home rather than stay in the suburbs. There is no place like our chawl she says. She has so many friends here and their attachment is deep. She also told us that people who have left the chawl in the past come back every year for the festivals and join them in the celebrations.

Another resident remarked that in a chawl everyone is concerned about others. He spoke about the “chawl culture” being good and hence nobody wanted to move from here. He narrated the incident of a one and a half year old child who fell from the second floor of the chawl. While the parents themselves were oblivious to what happened, it was the neighbours in the chawl who immediately rushed the little boy to the hospital.

The Sacred Snake Tree

Mrs. Surve sits by her window, staring with satisfaction at the small temple situated in the compound across Khushboo chawl. This temple is known in the community as Datta Mandir. Although there is another Ganesh Mandir in the neighbourhood, there is something very distinct, very special, that sets this temple apart from the other.

View of Datta Mandir temple from Mrs. Surve’s window

“This temple has been a part of my life ever since I can remember” said Mrs. Surve, one of the older residents of Khotachiwadi. She recalls her father protesting and eventually saving the temple from being demolished fifteen years ago when certain people from the same community wanted the temple torn down.

In this very same compound stands a tall Audambar tree which is almost a 150 years old. The tree, along with the temple is very sacred to neighbourhood folk especially to the residents of Khushboo building. Residents of the chawl speak of a myth associated with the tree. Seven years ago, the wadi had arranged for a public newspaper-reading stand to be installed for which the tree had to be cut down. Ten people carried the stand into the temple compound but a hundred were needed to uproot the tree. The strong roots of the tree made it impossible for them to dig anywhere around it. And that’s not all. One of our respondents said that when the digging started a snake came out and positioned itself as if protecting the tree.

The Sacred Tree – Datta Mandir

When we looked for corroborations to the story we were told a very different account of the same story. For constructing the newspaper stand, lots of sand was brought from Chowpatty beach. The sand had a small snake which came out in the middle of the night and entered one of the houses in the chawl by gliding through the branches of the tree. This created a huge ruckus and the entire neighbourhood came out to catch the snake. Fortunately there was a forest officer in Khotachiwadi who successfully got rid of the snake. Nobody knows why the newspaper stand was not installed. Maybe the snake could tell us that story!

What lies ahead…

When we asked the residents of Khushboo Chawl what they envisioned for their future we got mixed responses. Some said change is inevitable. The structures wouldn’t stay forever. They would be demolished to make way for new buildings but that would not happen soon. The residents are aware of some sort of a plan which is in the pipeline, however they feel it would take at least six or seven years more to translate into action. The lack of parking space and narrow streets were currently acting as deterrents to redevelopment in the area. This, they claim, is the reason why they have not been pressurized by builders. Everything is hearsay. None of them were against redevelopment. “We will get better houses and more space to live in” they remarked.

On another note, one of the residents was confident that nothing would change in the core part of the wadi where she lived. “Nothing will happen…They (builders and developers) will not get permission”. The reasons she cited for this are that there is inadequate parking space and streets are very narrow. She also said that the wadi had many small houses and it would be difficult for the builder to obtain consent from the families.

Some said they didn’t want huge towers. They would rather have in-situ development whereby the building is renovated keeping the structure intact. ‘We like it this way’ they said. Others said they wanted a tall building but not more that six or seven floors. They were aware of the fact that their maintenance costs would shoot up but that did not deter them from aspiring for bigger and better homes.

There were others who didn’t quite like the chawl. They had well-done interiors but were unhappy with the fact that their building was a chawl. They were confident about moving into a spacious house in a redeveloped tower which would join the other towers mushrooming in and around Girgaon. ‘How long can we stay like this, it is time we had something better like others have’ said one of our respondents, pointing to a skyscraper in the vicinity.

One of the respondents on being asked about his vision of the future surprised us with his response saying, “Yes I want to live in a tower. I’ll have more space. This place is congested. Otherwise what’s the point of change?” Nevertheless he maintained that even if the chawl folk were moved to huge towers, nothing could ever destroy the chawl lifestyle. They would still leave their doors open and continue to bond as they do now. “It will never change. Think big!” he said.