CHAWL CHAWL HAT YAHA SE

The reallocation of chawls and its residents as municipality looks at it as a hazard and wants to 

move towards a global city.

Mumbai's old mill workers re settlements

Among the heritages built by British and the sky-rise of the global city, lies the faded history of south Bombay’s chawls. Chawls are building with rooms not bigger than two hundred square feet connected with a hallway and share a common bathroom. In the nineteenth century when mills were establishing in south Bombay it created several opportunities for the workers who migrated to the city from different parts of the country. It was comfortable, the joint corridors never let a person feel alone and far from his family and being close to the factory was convenient and affordable. That was the beginning of city of Mumbai – the melting pot.

But while we are stare at the skyline from the sea link today, these 100 year old establishment have been declared unfit to live due to their poor structures, sanitation and ventilation. But in spite of the problems and the municipal declaring these building to be hazardous, residents still continue to live in those small rooms.

Those old wooden house with paper thin walls which stood firmly are supported by some heavy metal pillars. The beautiful ornamental balconies where the family stood to enjoy their evening tea was too weak to bear even one member’s weight. The chawls above the wellington hairdresser gives you sight. Hidden under the shadows of economic and infrastructure development, the middle class family refuse to leave the cultures of Bombay and keep pace with trends of Mumbai. They enjoy living in their close knit social system with affordable housing compared to secluded apartments provided after relocation.

Smita Koppikar in her article: “Thereby hangs a storey” gave example of the stubbornness of a hundred year old chawl residents when they were asked to relocate to a safer surrounding. The relation between the chawls and their habitants have surprised several researchers one of them being Chandrashekhar in his book India’s population: facts and policy.

As most of the people living in these chawls belonged to the lower or middle class societies working in factories all day, they have little or no time to waste on travelling and try their best to save. Thus we you see chawls in naigaon or grant road are built like townships where all the amenities are provided in and around your house. But in a suburban area where they are relocated generally have the residential and commercial area separate increasing their cost of living and transportation. The residents struggle and live with fear of losing their property to a builder. Most of the chawls are present near mills situated in south Bombay like grant road, Mumbai central, marine lines, crawford etc. and the property value of these location rise everyday says Richard Swift in his article ‘Powerloom Prison.’

Chawls are not a symbol of property but a reminder of how Mumbai became the global city it is today. They might face a lot of issues but like all resident building they also chip in what they can for the maintenance of their house. The chawls in naigaon pay Rs. 30 compared to Grant road where they pay Rs. 250 and the difference in amount is not their neglect but difference in economic status having same logical minds. A resident in a broken and weak roof feels safer as his landlord takes responsibility of anything that goes wrong compared to our developing strong building whose landlord blame the tenders for anything going wrong. Chawls are not the face of poverty, but a strong determination to not give up our basic human nature of socializing and helping each other to a nucleated apartment where you don’t get involved in their everyday activity to help them until they ask. In a study done by Priyanka Karandlkar in 2011 called ‘Analysis of middle class housing in Mumbai’ she concluded that Chawls are the best housing type of middle class families as it accommodates huge number and fits the budget of every labour and clerk.

In 1894, Rudyard Kipling saw south Bombay as a jungle from the window of his house (which is now the JJ school of arts) and created Mogli. In 1908, Bal Gangadhar Tilak gave this presidency its national hero, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaja. In 1959, a navy officer of south Bombay shook the nation with three shots and changed the order of judiciary by the abolishment of jury. In 1993, the riots covered the city with a shadow of unrest and divide. Hindu against Muslim, Babar against Shivaji. But against the wide divide we saw in 1993, we saw the unity of Mumbai against terrorism in 2008.

Today the chawls stand in front of the high rise building trying to tell everyone ‘though I may look weak, the people in this chawl are strong. Though may not fit your criteria of being a townie with your loaded bank accounts, expensive taste and fluent English. We are the face of south Bombay who worked every day in the mills to make a better future and later went home and created memories with my family within these nine feet by nine feet square room with open doors for all.’ 

The following are few chawls if you would like to visit in south Bombay:

-          Swadeshi chawl – Located near Crawford market.

Over a hundred years old built in 1860’s the swadeshi chawls were constructed in three phases.

Today it’s one super bloc owned by a single family where the lower floors are used for commercial purpose and upper floors are residence.

-          Atmaram Chawl – located near St Francis Xavier lane, Kalbadevi.

Built in 1866 was housing made originally for Parsis. The layout is a reflection of the needs of a community as a whole. When the Parsi left it was renamed to Christian Chawl, but later the socio-cultural interaction between the Christian and hindu’s in that Chawl decided to call it Atmaram. Unlike other Chawls this one was built specifically for one community as the service like kitchen was separated from the rest of the house.