Maska Bun and Migration: Irani Cafes of BombayImage Gallery
Chawls of Bombay—An IntroductionOverview
Pyaavs of Mumbai: A Visual Tour Image Gallery
Colonial Bombay
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Typically, a chawl is a set of rooms strung along a corridor. Each of these rooms are inhabited by different households. Chawls can be single- or multi-storied—generally they have a ground floor plus two or three above. While one end of the corridor has a staircase, the other end typically has a…
in Article
The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a settling down of the urban industrial haze that had enveloped economic and political centres all over the world. During those unsettling decades, cities were still shaping themselves vis-à-vis emerging industrial modern realities – primarily, increased…
in Article
Chawls have been well represented in popular depictions of the city of Mumbai through movies, serials, plays and books. Most visibly present around the erstwhile textile mill regions of Parel and South Bombay, chawls have emerged as a housing typology across the entire city. Today they represent…
in Overview
Water is pure, Water is natural,
Water is healthy, Water can help all.Water is simple, Water is free,
Water can help the lives…The lives of you and me!
Olivia Taylor
These lines by Olivia Taylor aptly define the importance of this odourless and colourless substance…
in Article
Voiceover Text
My cousin writes from Hyderapot
My only chance to snatch,
And says the climate is so hot,
She says that I shall much delight
To taste their Indian treats,
But what she likes may turn me quite,
Their strange outlandish meats. -
If I can eat rupees, who knows?
Or dine, the Indian way…
in Video
Umesh Nagarkar talks about the role of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai as a funding agency and a strong backbone in the restoration projects of pyaavs, or drinking water fountains in Mumbai. He also speaks of the need for greater public awareness in preserving these antiquities and…
in Interview
Conservation architect Rahul Chemburkar talks about understanding the contexts of the pyaavs (drinking water fountains) of Mumbai. He focuses on the architectural variety that one finds in pyaavs and the elaborate restoration process that every structure needs to undergo. He puts across a very…
in Interview
Historian and author of the book Water Heritage of Mumbai (2011), Dr. Varsha Shirgaonkar speaks on pyaav structures as history markers, while elaborating on the process of her pioneering work that brought the pyaavs of Mumbai into the limelight. It was her team that re-discovered these gems that…
in Interview