Bombay Novels: Some Insights in Spatial Criticism Bombay Novels: Some Insights in Spatial Criticism By Mamta Mantri With a Foreword by Amrit Gangar Bombay Novels: Some Insights in Spatial Criticism By Mamta Mantri This book first published 2019 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2019 by Mamta Mantri All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-2390-X ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-2390-6 For Vinay and Rajesh TABLE OFCONTENTS Acknowledgements ......................................................................... ix Foreword ......................................................................................... xi Introduction ................................................................................. xxvi Chapter One ...................................................................................... 1 The Contours of a City What is a City? The City in Western Philosophy and Polity The City in Western Literature The City in India Chapter Two ................................................................................... 30 Locating the City in Spatial Criticism The History of Spatial Criticism Space and Time Space, Place, Site and Cultural Geography Textuality of the City City, NarrativeFlâneur and the Postcolonial and the City Novels as a Sourceormation of Infand Knowledge Chapter Three ................................................................................. 72 Mumbai: History and Literature Chapter Four ................................................................................. 121 Mumbai in Literature and Cinema viii Table of Contents Chapter Five ................................................................................. 177 Describing the City Introduction Description of the City The Sensorial Experience and the City Cinema and its Bearings Conclusion Chapter Six ................................................................................... 217 Flânerie and the Novel of the City Flânerie The Novel as a Literary Device Conclusion Chapter Seven ............................................................................... 258 Identity and the City Identity and the Self Identity and Naming Within the ‘isms’ Conclusion Chapter Eight ................................................................................ 300 Conclusion Bibliography ................................................................................. 327 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book is the outcome of mybest intention of to contribute, to the my abilities, to the academic atdiscourse continuously developing the Department of English, Universitych of Mumbai, a place to whi I owe my thought process and critical abilities. It is only because of the blessingn of my parents, Shri Brijmoha Mantri and Smt Shakuntala Mantrie a that I could research and writ book. My Ph.D. Guide, Dr (Mrs) Hemangi Bhagwat provided me with much-needed researchleads toacumen convert andch my thesis, whi is now a book,obust into aand more well-rounded r k. piece of wor My heartfelt gratituded film historian to renownee and one of th leading authorities on Mumbai,t Shri Amrit Gangar, for taking ou time to write themy book foreword and contextualizing forn the it i larger gamut of city literature. My brother Mr. Vinay Mantri hasg the been a pillar of strength durin writing of this book, and thend book and is dedicated to him. My frie flatmate, Mr. Rajesh Kumar, this is also for you. I also sincerely thank Dr. Nilufer Bharucha, Dr. Shridhar Rajeshwaran, Dr. Coomi Vevaina, Dr. Yasmeen Lukmani, Dr. B x Acknowledgements Rangrao, Dr. Ram Bhau Badode and Dr. Shoba Ghosh, at the Department of English, University of Mumbai. FOREWORD Two decades have passed by from the time I had first coined and used theRuralopolis word for Mumbai in one of my essays published inThe Speaking Tree columnThe ofTimes of India (Lemon & Chillies for Dreams & Deceptions, Amrit Gangar,18 August 1999). Twenty years is fairly long timecularly for a city to transform, parti so for a city with a monetizing mindset, where Stock Exchange happens to be one of the important cultural institutions. Bombay/Mumbai has undergone a substantial physical and behavioral change with a generationalnot. turnover. And yet it has To my mind, she, in her arteriesns a and interiorities, still remai fascinating symbiosis of theities, rural and the urban. In her curios Mumbai keeps beckoninger strange you intoburgeoning h suburban ‘places’ and ‘spaces’ carryingor nomenclatures such as Lankapada Kharodi Gaothannagars all amidst around and mushrooming plush gated communities.nagars (cities) Mumbainagar iswithin (mega- a city). The word ‘nagar’ has different connotations and many big Indian citiesnagars are, e.g. known Ahmednagar, as Bhavnagar, etc. Nagars have been part of ancientnagar urban experience or the sanskriti, the urban civilization. In its fold, this book comprehends the intellectual and emotional immensity of the megalopolis Bombay/Mumbai within its primaryr engagement of four fictional o xii Foreword semi-fictional literary worksres andof different tenors, times, textu temperaments. Nomenclaturally, unlike Indian rivers (almost all of them are feminine, except a very few withr masculine names such as Damoda or Brahmaputra), Indian citiesuter absorb all genders: feminine, ne as well as masculine.nagar, Besides e.g. Kushinagar being a (in Uttar Pradesh, where Buddha is believed to have attained his parinirvana or freedom from physical existence and suffering), it couldnagari be, vatia , purama orpura a /pur , patnama orpattam or anabad , e.g. Amravati (in Maharashtra), Meenakshipuram (in Chennai) or Nagpuro be (considered the political t capital of Maharashtra), Puri (in Odisha),h) Machilipatnam (in Andhra Prades or Ahmedabad (inese Gujarat). names become Th crucibles of cultures and politics of power and possession. The ‘suffixes’ could indicatetemple the or character of the city: port, garden. Besides gender, as sarilya ‘polis’, size- these terms are not neces specific (geographic or demographic).eresting ‘Pura’ could evoke an int real, utopic or ideal imageaidas, of a city 1398- that Saint Ravidas (aka R 1450) had imagined and poeticized. The city is Begampura: बेगमपुरा सहर को नाउ । दू खु अंदो नही ितिह ठाउ ॥ नां तसवीस खराजु न मालु । खउफु न खता न तरसु जवालु ॥ Bombay Novels:s Somein Spatial Insight Criticismxiii Begampura is the city without without suffering or sorrow; it is a city troubles or taxes on commodities, she knows no fear, blemish or downfall. And then he says: अब मोिह खूब वतन गह पाई । “Now, I have found this most excellent city.” He uses the word ‘vatan’वतन) of ( Arabic or Persian origin (e.g. Al-watan), which would mean homeland / heimat; country or nation. Born in the villagedhanpur of Seer (aka Gover Sirar Gobardhan) ne Varanasi (Benaras, also calledthe Kashi or the City of Lights) in Indian state of what is now calledged Uttar Pradesh, Ravidas belon to one of Hindu society’s lowest But of the low castes of cobblers. through his action and devotion,gnificant he attained the status of a si mystic saint-poet and is being the venerated as a guru (teacher) in regions of the Punjab, Uttar Pradesh,d Rajasthan, Maharashtra an Madhya Pradesh. His devotional songs have made a lasting impact upon the Bhakti Movement (a movement that emerged during the medieval Hinduism, it rejected the differences based on caste hierarchy). In fact, these saint-poetsle as played a very crucial ro social reformers amidst the castey. and class-ridden Hindu societ Begampura is an ideal city, and as sponge, the city of cities, Bombay/Mumbai absorbsence; like its consci‘nagars’so you will al find ‘pura’ in her bowels (e.g.Dongri Tantanpura still exists in the xiv Foreword area of South Mumbai, though now in a street named after it). Bombay/Mumbai is often calledmaya – of Mayapuri, the city of illusion. As myth, could Begampura be an Ithaca? Ravidas didn’t writeOdyssey but found her Begampura in his imagination of an ideal city. Or Capernaum, a Galileanin the city frequently mentioned history of our Lord? This remindsilm me of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s f The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964). While looking out for locations, Pasolini visited and Galilee, his teamcus, Jordan, Damas Bethlehem and Jerusalem. In resonance, Mumbai too harkens her existence back to the goddess Mumba,l who was patron of the loca agris (salt collectors) andnhabitants kolis (fisher folk), the original i of the Seven Islands of biomythographiesBombay. Perhaps all such coagulate into a city! Bombay/Mumbaihat has her own coagulations t could travel back to Ramayanaeven !epical Dr Mantri’s times of the drawal of the narratives fictional from orovels semi-fictional the n incidentally empowers the readertions to imaginary, mythical explora alongside the real. In terms of chronological publishing of time, there is an interval quarter of a century betweenBaluta, originally the four: in the first Marathi, was out1975 in 1978national (post- emergency phase), while theShantaram last in 2003 (post-2002 genocidal happenings in Gujarat), in betweenBaumgartner’s Bombaythe two(1988) live andRavan & Eddie (1995); the year 1988 had already