A flaneur's notebook of Mumbai

Mumbai is a densely layered palimpsest of history, each new migrant community barely obscuring the last, each urban re-invention barely concealing the previous. 

In the absence of rational underpinnings in most of the city's design (or lack thereof), sometimes the best way to explore Mumbai is to ditch your guidebook and embrace an abstract, slightly absurdist approach. 

Below, the Raqs Media Collective, an artist group formed by Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta in 1992, provides some examples of how to think about this megapolis in a new way. 

In their upcoming show at gallery Project 88 entitled "The Capital of Accumulation," The Raqs Media Collective explores three cities: Berlin, Warsaw and Mumbai. 

Their approach is redolent of 17th century flâneurs, a term used by French poet Charles Baudelaire to describe men who took slow-paced, observant strolls through Paris.

Shuddabrata Sengupta believes "a city can be read like a novel," and that things the Raqs trio chanced upon in Mumbai helped them "develop a vocabulary" about larger socio-cultural events in society.

Sewri's flamingos as internal migrants

"Sewri, which is a breeding site for flamingos, posed a challenge to our understanding of cities," says Sengupta. "This was an area that is considered a periphery, but actually, from the point of view of the flamingo, this is the center, and the rest of Bombay is the periphery. Spending time in Sewri we noticed how the flamingos sustained themselves by just turning up and living off mud. To us, this is an allegory for migrants who turn up in opposition to the injunctions against them and live here anyway. In the case of these people, staying in a hostile city is a microscopic act of resistance."

Watson's Hotel as a dream factory

"Just next to the Army and Navy Building stands the old Watson Hotel. Many people don't know this but Watson's is where the first film was shown in India by the Lumière brothers. We wandered inside and found a wall covered with nameplates. One of them read 'Dream Factory.' It was a nice coincidence that we found this sign in a historical building with such important ties to the cinema industry. Of course, it also echoes this idea of Mumbai producing dreams and desires, which is something we are interested in," Sengupta says.

Round-the-clock dock

"You take your bearings on how the city lives not only by getting to know its sense of space, but also its relation to time. The dockyards are a great example of this. The city has turned its back on the harbor. When trying to understand the city I could begin with the harbor," Sengupta says, "as that's were so many things started. That's how the world came into Bombay.  This area also reveals the attitude to time in the city. It's not a 9-5 routine. For example, all along the old dockyard there were these Parsi cafes which never shut. They would offer breakfast to those leaving the night shift and dinner to those ending the dayshift. This is a different way of understanding how a city works."

Bandra, a shadowy metaphor of transitory Mumbai

The group also spent some time on the Bandra walkway, next to the Western Express Highway. "Walking on the walkway casts shadows, and there are many instances in the city where the shadows make the city very rich," narrates Sengupta. "We were fascinated by the dense shadows of people on the walls. Traces of the human body are left in this city in many ways. These ephemeral shadows made us ask what it means to say that a city is 'fleeting.' How do we speak of its fleeting nature? Things like these shadows became starting points of our thinking about the work we are making. It can set off a whole chain of thought."

Rhythm of the chawls

"Phanaswati, near Bhuleshwar market, was set up in the early 20th century in the heart of old Bombay. It is an oasis of a different kind of sociability, in the way that the spaces are inhabited, in the way that children use them to play games -- whether it be a stolen afternoon of chess or cricket. There is a way in which these spaces insist on their own rhythm," says Sengupta. "Not pastoral or idyllic rhythm, but an urban one, a counterpoint to the rhythm of Mumbai's old mills."

"The Capital of Accumulation" runs at Project 88 till November 20, 2010. The show includes a 50-minute video diptych, a light installation, a suite of photos and a sculptural object.

Project 88, BMP Building, Ground Floor, N.A. Sawant Marg, Near Colaba Fire Station, Colaba; tel. +91 (0) 22 2281 0066. Monday 2-7 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Closed on Sundays and public holidays