Lucky

Clicked these snaps last night at the Lucky junction in Bandra.

Have been planning to click some slow shutter speed photos of the city and some of the new Bandra west pedestrian bridge for a while now - so last night I killed two birds with one stone!

I love these bridges! Gives you amazing views of the city.

2000 year old caves are there

'What does that mean? Does it mean that the caves are in that direction or does it mean that they exist' asked Cat and Dem almost in-sync like most other questions/opinions they've shared with me in the last two days! In Indian English 'xyz is there' strangely more often refers to xyz being in existence.

Till yesterday Cat and Dem were acquaintances from my days in London - we had crossed paths because of friends and work quite a few times but we probably didn’t know each other enough to claim to be friends. They are here in Bombay for 3 days as they conclude their 3 month trip of discovering India and a bit of themselves :-)

They started their grand India tour in April when they landed in Bombay and headed south.. Three months later, here they are again waiting to catch a flight back to London having seen more of India (south/north/west) than I have in my entire life. As you can imagine they are quiet tired, but the traveler in me is not able to let them leave the city without showing them something here! Given the fact that they have a flight to catch early tomorrow I was given a difficult task of choosing only one place in Bombay to show them.

Keeping in mind that they've probably had more than their share of the noisy Indian streets/bazaars I decided to take them to the oldest and possibly the quietest part of the city, to a place that is as far away from it as possible but still within it! But these girls had no idea what we were going to see, I had left it as a surprise!

Bombay is one of the few large cities in the world that has an entire forest bang in the center of it. The Borivali national park is no city park... it's a real forest - complete with dense tree cover, lakes, waterfalls and even wild leopards.

This morning we headed straight for Borivali and once we got to the entrance of the national park I told them that we had to take a long walk to deep inside the forest to get away from the madness of the city to see a very special place.… We walked.. and walked and walked some more till we finally got to what seemed like the end of the road.. the place was lined up with lots of cars and hoards of people (so much for my attempt to find them a quiet place in the city!). The crowded road lead straight into some small hills which we could see from far was covered in tiny rows of people scattering up its slopes like lines of ants on a foraging expedition.. it was now time to reveal to them why we had walked soo much and why the heart of the forest was filled with these loud groups!

Not only is the Borivali national park home to a wide variety of flora and fauna, it even has its own lost city - a monastic city of a 100 odd caves carved into its rocky hills by Bhuddist monks. The oldest of which are over 2000 years old.
The famous Kanheri caves of Borivali are one of the most notable sights in the megacity and probably also the most unexpected. Everyone knows that Bombay is one of India youngest cities, a toddler in a country filled with ancient places.. yet here at its heart, deep inside the forest is one of the most impressive relics of a bygone way of life.

Although most of the caves here are quiet austere there are a few exceptions (around 5 of them) which are inspiring to say the least – complete with elaborate sculptures carved onto the cave wall surface and interesting sequence/scale of spaces.

Thankfully in their 3 months in India, Cat and Dem had missed all the other caves in the country (some of which - like the ones in Ajanta and Ellora - are far more elaborate), so the choice of bringing them to see the caves turned out to be a great way to end their first trip to India.

After exploring some of the caves and soaking in a bit of the amazing ambiance it was time for us to head back into the concrete jungle.

I’ve got some friends coming over tonight and the girls are insisting on cooking something special :-)

Some how I get the feeling that I’ll really miss - Cat and Dem…It always amazes me that people you think are worlds apart from you can be soo close! Have a safe journey home and back to India...

Random Mumbai

Some random photos from Bombay:

The Tote restaurant and bar designed by Serie Architects

An aerial photo from above Juhu beach

At marine drive

The Bandra Worli sea link

Bandra bandstand from above

Public housing in the city by MHADA

Some more MHADA housing

The Tardeo twin towers by architect Hafeez Contractor

The city's famous black and yellow cabs at Bombay Central

South Bombay monotones

Clicked these photos last week around the fort area of South Bombay as part of a photo shoot I was doing for a corporate interiors project.

The photos demanded to be converted to monotone!

Viru's 200

I went to see the test match between India and Sri Lanka at the Brabourne stadium for a few hours today after lunch time.. It was amazing that there were soo many people to watch a test match..!!

Virender Sehwag was at his best playing a test match as if it was a 20-20 game ...and he even crossed his 200 runs while I was there.. : )

Yellow caterpillars go for a walk in Bandra

Went to see the much talked about 'yellow caterpillars' of Bandra East and loved it! I think it works beautifully connecting people almost effortlessly from the Bandra Kurla Complex to the Railway station above some uncrossable roads, slums and murderous traffic. Even the design of this elevated walkway is quiet nice with its simplicity and lightness, sadly thanks to a few narrow-minded historians and critics the design of the other elevated walkways being constructed across the city has been changed to a much more heavier and bulky look and feel.!

Here's lots of photos of it:
As I walked on this I was constantly thinking of two amazing Utopian visions for the city: Constant Nieuwenhuys' New Babylon and Yona Friedman's inhabitable bridges.

Wouldn't it be great if this simple need to get people to and away from the railway stations could in fact be the genesis for an alternate model for the growth of this crazy metropolis?

So what would happen when these structures start growing - longer and taller - spreading a web of streets in the sky... Couldn't they start housing small shops.. houses... and eventually an entire city - a New New Bombay perhaps!!

To all the short-sighted critics out there I will quote Yona Friedman :

“We all know
how cities are
they can eventually,
become different”

Here's a few interesting links on how different architects/planners have dealt with various urban visions using bridges and elevated walkways:

• Some projects from bldgblog
• Interview with Yona Friedman
• The highline, New York by Diller-Scofidio-Renfro