Living on The edge Hiranandani sees the railways is no stranger to this kind Rachel Lopez “as important connectors to distant of arrangement. Its first suburb rose areas”, and they are. But more than a higgledy- piggledy beyond the Fort in When he was growing up bonding agent, the railway lines have Kalbadevi and in the mid- in Mumbai in the 1950s and ’60s, provided the blueprint for Mumbai’s nineteenth century, but every region that construction magnate Niranjan growth, observed architect Charles subsequently rose beyond was planned Hiranandani lived in a very different Correa in his perceptive essay Public keeping the city’s population growth kind of city. Most people agreed that Transport as DNA. “The urban structure and needs in mind. In 1866, Mumbai the city ended at and “ of Bombay was not ordained by any already had east-west connectivity via the was a far-flung suburb”, he said. As city planner,” he wrote. It was “really Carnac, Masjid and Elphinstone bridges. Hiranandani grew older, Mumbai grew determined by the railway engineers” bigger. By the late 1980s, he had signed who laid down the Western and Central Thirty years later, an outbreak an agreement with the Railway local lines. (See Books for an of the plague would force the Bombay government, the Mumbai Metropolitan interview with Correa.) Since the end Improvement Trust to decongest the Regional Development Authority and local of the nineteenth century, Mumbai has city by doubling the number of roads, landholders to build a township in Powai, grown in the direction the train tracks led. building low-cost housing and extending much beyond the far-flung Bandra of his city boundaries up to Sion. In the boyhood. Mumbai continued to march out Consider these statistics: of the suburban colonies of Dadar and , even further. In the last decade, Hirandani 38 lakh people who moved to the city which emerged in the 1930s, the BIT has built housing complexes as far away between 1991 and 2001, roughly half allowed residents equable access to as . He is now constructing a new have settled in the suburbs. The 1991 sunlight and breeze by ensuring that township in , a place considered census shows that the population of no building directly faced the other. the very edge of Mumbai but which Kalyan on the Central Railway exploded is only one of the four end-points of by 645 per cent in the ’80s and the Mumbai got its first city the city’s local railways system. Mira- Bhayander region along the development policy as early as 1909, a Western Railway expanded to 583 per 20-year plan designed to control landlords The website of the cent during the same time. The number and develop homes for the poor. It had a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, of first-class pass holders from Dahisar town planning scheme in Bandra and Khar the body that governs Greater Mumbai, rose from 6.33 lakh in 2007 to 8.44 by the1920s, zoning laws in 1951 that has a large map marking Dahisar and lakh in 2008, while their second-class prevented the construction of factories Mulund as the borders of its 468 sq km counterparts increased from 38.12 in the island city and a sprawling colony End of the Line jurisdiction. On the site of the MMRDA, the lakh to 53.07 lakh. The numbers from for the middle income group in Bandra TimeOUT, August 6 – 19 2010 organisation responsible for developing Naigaon, Nalasopara, Thane, Dombivali east by the 1960s. Mumbai seemed the 4,355 sq km metropolitan area, and Kalyan stations showed an average to know how to manage its growth. the map is even larger. It also includes increase of 40 per cent as well. Thane district, Uran and Pen – satellite So why are we now so grossly towns and villages whose economy is The railway tracks mark out incapable of creating suburbs that can inextricably linked to Mumbai’s. But for where the city grew from, and point to adequately support the expansion of our most Mumbaikars, the city doesn’t end where it’s headed next: the areas at the ever-growing city? All development in the where civic authorities tell it to – it stops ends of the Central and Western lines. Mumbai metropolitan region is supposed where the last local train does. On the As a city, this puts us in an enviable to be planned by the MMRDA. But the Western Railway, that means . On position. We can plan today so our region also has several other entities Naresh Fernandez the Central Railway, it could be one of final destinations are well prepared that have decision-making powers: the Writer/ Consulting Editor TimeOut three points: Kasara, or Panvel. for the population that is to come. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation

038 / 02 housing 02 / 039 (which manages Greater Mumbai), 12 “There is no overall strategy other municipal councils (for regions for urban development today,” observed like Thane, Khopoli, Virar and Alibaug), Shirish Patel, one of the architects the City and Industrial Development who submitted the initial proposal for Corporation of Maharashtra (which is building in the 1964.The responsible for the planning of Navi plan, created along with Charles Correa, Mumbai) and several gram panchayats, featured a series of stations along the each managing their own villages. Neither train line around which buildings and a of these is answerable to the other. circular bus corridor could be created. Areas closer to the stations were to have Perhaps that’s part of the dense growth that would diminish as one problem. The metropolitan region moved further away so that low income will have an estimated population of residents could walk to the station. Those 21.9 million by 2015. But it also has who could afford it would have more perhaps the poorest infrastructure spacious housing accessible by car. of any city of comparable size. Instead, Cidco, the developing authority that was established in 1971 to manage As the reports on the following the making of Navi Mumbai, opted to pages show, there is sewage on the have a uniform density for the whole streets in Virar, four holiday-home area, making for not only a monotonous and sold land at the highest profit. No doesn’t have to be retrofitted (like in complexes in Kasara but no hospital for landscape but creating traffic jams along low-income housing was created.” the case of the metro, monorail and the its 16,000 residents, and no jobs for the the main roads in the process. “Funding Jogeshwari-Vikhroli link road projects). residents of Khopoli. Even Panvel, the for the infrastructure was to come from Sunil Mantri, the president of Rohit Mujumdar, an architect with a only planned suburb of all the end-point the sale of land by Cidco,” Patel said. the Maharashtra Chamber for Housing special interest in the peripheral - stations, is starting to strain at the seams. “But Cidco turned into a private developer Industry, an association of builders and Virar region, recalls the press reportage real-estate developers, believes that that followed the announcement of the Mumbai’s northward sprawl and rapid Vasai-Virar development plan in 1988. pace of construction means that today’s “The headlines said that 10,000 hectares last stops will be tomorrow’s bustling had been opened up to development,” suburbs. “They will look like he said. “But the articles revealed that and Goregaon,” he predicted. But unless some 7,000-8000 hectares of that land new development plans are drafted to had already been bought by builders. keep pace with the city’s growth, they’re The plan seemed like an afterthought.” likely to have Andheri and Goregaon’s nightmarish infrastructure too. Mumbai’s To make up for the lack of first development plan was formulated statesupplied infrastructure, large in 1964; its second came into force townships like those by Niranjan between 1990 and ’93 and is valid until Hiranandani integrate parking, recreation 2013. “Plans should come every 10 and even schools and private hospitals years, not every 30 years,” Mantri said. into their layouts. “Living is not just staying in a flat,” Hiranandani said. They should ideally come “Eventually you have to get out of the before development takes place, so house, go shopping, meet people or go infrastructure precedes growth and to the doctor.” As more private townships

040 / 02 housing 02 / 041 sprout up in the new suburbs, the outside Panvel that will include an IT Industry standard census to reveal a population of close to disparity between people who depend on commercial centre, an entertainment Megha Mahindru one lakh, a huge jump indeed for a village state-provided amenities and those with city and rental housing. In the Igatpuri- that had only 515 residents in 1882. the ability to buy them are becoming more Vajreshwari area beyond Kasara, where Some residents of Khopoli obvious. It’s likely that some building much of the land is owned by local haven’t have been to a movie theatre So tied is Khopoli to industry complexes will soon have four-lane temple trusts, the MMRDA is working on in a decade, ever since the area’s only today that a local waterfall, one of the highways within their perimeters, even as a Recreation and Tourism Development cinema hall shut down ten years ago. But area’s big attractions, is named Zenith treeless alleys are all that separate one Zone that could block public access to the town Khopoli still attracts plenty of Falls, after a steel company in the vicinity. township from the next. Today’s Kasara the river and green areas. In Pen, not youth from around the region. For many Not that anyone minds. “People’s lives villagers could end up as project-affected far from Khopoli, plans for the Mumbai of them, the last station on one branch of improved with the coming of industries,” persons if a development plan for the Special Economic Zone are already the the Central Railway main line is the first said Kishore Yashwardhan Tanna, 60, who area comes after the place is over-run subject of much controversy and in the point of contact with the urbanization and runs a grocery shop near Khopoli station with holiday homes and the roads need midst of it all, the MMRDA has recently the possibility it brings of a better life. and whose family has lived in the town for to be widened to accommodate SUVs. commissioned a feasibility study to five generations. “It created plenty of jobs develop the 140km stretch between That’s obvious from the activity and gave us good connectivity to Mumbai But even before it addresses Virar and Alibaug. Our local trains don’t at the year-old Tata Indicom call centre. and through the Expressway. the problems at the city’s periphery, the even reach that far yet. But as previous It is filled with some 250 head-phone- MMRDA is thinking beyond it. Plans are experience has taught us, it’s time that we wearing boys and girls from as far away Shankar Dattu Ghatge, who under way for a Mega City project just begin to think of taking them there soon. as Ulhasnagar. They travel 12 stations moved to Khopoli from Kolhapur in 1951, and more than 50 km to work, and their agrees. He started out as an employee shifts are dictated by train schedules. “It of Tata, but later found a more lucrative is our rural operations centre,” said Sagar job with Mahindra and Mahindra. Now Pardesi, who manages the centre. “So 77 and retired after 31 years of service, most of the staff is fluent in Marathi and a Ghatge says that his life as an industrial few are given tasks in Hindi and English.” worker may have been hard but has paid off – and paid off well. “When we Khopoli The existence of the call centre shifted to Khopoli, it was a jungle,” he Population 58,657.* isn’t really surprising, considering that said. “A few years into my service, our Khopoli has been an industrial centre of company accommodated their workers Distance from CST 115km. sorts for almost a century. Its potential has at the Musco colony.” At Musco, Ghatge Commuting time to CST by train been recognised by businessmen since and his colleagues live in two-bedroom 2hours 30 minutes. 1914, when the Tatas set up the country’s houses within a building complex that *According to the 2001 census first private hydroelectric plant here. But accommodates a fair-price grocery outlet the big wave of business development and a recreational club complete with Metro flashback came only in the 1960s, when Khopoli swimming pool. The area now has English Excerpts from the Gazetteer of the , 1882. and its neighbouring areas became medium schools and colleges. Many Khopivli, formerly known as Campoli, is a small village of 515 home to factories that manufacture of its inhabitants own two-wheelers. people. In 1779, the Bombay expedition, which was to have set paper, food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals Raghoba in power in Poona, had several skirmishes with the and steel, big names like Mahindra and While Khopoli seems bright on Marathas in Khopivli in which two English officers were killed. Mahindra and Cadbury, and several the outside, it takes only a little surface- smaller industries for packaging, pipes scratching for the veneer to chip. The and bricklaying. The Khopoli Municipal town that supplies power to Mumbai and Council, which replaced the Gram Pune still lives life ruled by load-shedding Panchayat in the ’70s, expects the 2011 timetables. “There has been no major

042 / 02 housing 02 / 043 development in recent times here,” said people have to go to far off places to Pravin Jadhav, bureau chief of the Raigad work, because all the jobs here are Times, which occupies a one-room office taken,” said Tanna. Ghatge’s son, Nitin, in Khopoli. “It’s mostly road accidents who works at in a small plant that makes on the Expressway that make news.” plastic bags and pouches, claims that the The town was abuzz with anticipation in workers from UP were willing to work 12- 2003 when steel giant Bhushan Steels 16 hours for the same salary that locals set up in Khopoli. The locals had been demanded for an eight-hour-day. “This hopeful about new job opportunities, is a no-win situation for us,” he said. but the company ended up recruiting most of its employees from outside the Nitin Ghatge’s colleague, state. The cloud of resentment that this Bhagwaan Sawant, also believes that created resulted in the murder, in 2008 the real story of Khopoli lies beyond the It Happened Here of Dharamdev Rai, a worker from UP. large industrial plants. “It’s fine to say Some Khopoli residents see UFO, January 2005. that Khopoli has big industries and is Though political hoardings developing,” said Sawant. “But if you turn The night of January 11, 2005, continues to baffle residents proclaim Khopoli’s allegiance to to the smaller industries, you’ll find that of Khopoli. Around 8.30pm, a loud explosion was heard in Apta, Chirner, Babasaheb Ambedkar’s beliefs, hints of the city hasn’t changed at all.” A year ago, Kharpada and other villages in the area. “The walls of my house began to the Shiv Sena’s agenda ricochet around Sawant, 27, started a project with the shake and we immediately rushed out,” recalled Apta resident Sanjay Patil. the town. The townsmen resent outsiders research organisation Pukar to investigate “That is when we saw a ball of fire in the sky.” Panic spread. Residents taking jobs they believe should be theirs. the exploitative conditions and problems didn’t know where the luminous sphere had come from or where it was “Murder was no way to react, but our faced by labourers in the unorganised going. Some wondered if they’d been visited by an alien spaceship. sector, which includes soap plants and biscuits factories. “We found out that Police teams were sent out to there were no unions in the small-scale investigate. “From what I remember, none industries,” he said. “Many of them are of the teams was able to recover anything,” forced to work extra hours without any said Pravin Jadhav, the Khopoli bureau chief added compensation. The industries of Raigad Times. Some newspaper reports do not even offer basic medical and suggested that the explosion had been transportation costs to their employees.” caused by an errant fighter aircraft that was flying faster than the speed of sound, It took Khopoli many centuries to triggering off a sonic boom. The ball of fire, grow from a little village into an industrial these reports claimed, was actually the trail town. Now, the pace of change is much from the plane’s exhaust. Others speculated quicker. As costs rise, many industries are that the culprit was a misfired round from a considering relocating to nearby villages, naval anti-aircraft gun. Some reports even with cheaper land and labour. Mumbaikars claimed that the fireball was the result of may see Khopoli as a place to hike, an asteroid falling to the Earth. Nothing relax and speed along the planned 26- was established conclusively. “I don’t know acre private dirt track for bikes and car what happened,” admitted Khopoli tehsildar rallies, but the new generation of Khopoli Ramnath Karad. But for eyewitnesses, residents are starting to see something the mysterious ball of fire cannot be else: a dream deferred and a big city forgotten. “I have never seen anything that’s still a very, very long train ride away. like that,” Patil said. Zeenat Nagree

044 / 02 housing 02 / 045 Tracking changes Shetty didn’t know then that he has given up too. Newspaper work significance to travellers only because it Zeenat Nagree the train would play an important part hours don’t coincide with a seventrains- allowed access to the , which in changing his life. The services were only service, forcing him to look for climbed on to andPune. The On the tracks of Khopoli even more infrequent than they are today, rental accommodation closer to his village gained prominence in 1914 when railway station, even goats have nothing but the direct trains afforded Shetty a office in Parel. “It came to a point where Tata Power started ’s first private to fear. They linger lazily, grazing on chance to travel to the Sir JJ School of I could do my job or leave it unfinished hydroelectric project there, creating the weeds that sprout between the Applied Art from 1998. It meant living a to catch the last train home,” Shetty Patalganga, an artificial waterway, which rails, secure in the knowledge that life dictated by the railway time-table and said. He now lives in Currey Road and encouraged other industries to come if a train has just left, there won’t working on his drawing skills in a moving goes home only on the weekend. to Khopoli. The industries attracted be another for a long, long time. train. But this was the only way out from workers from across the country and Khopoli which has only two colleges: Khopoli residents want the ultimately necessitated a goods train Passengers know this too. the BL Patil Polytechnic, for courses in frequency of trains to be increased. service. “There was significant goods Of the 336 trains that depart from engineering, or the KMC College, which They often end up boarding one of the traffic along the line,” said Rajendra Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus on the has BA, BCom and BSc programmes. 15 shuttle daily trains that run 15km Aklekar, an amateur railway historian. Central Railway’s main line every day, to Karjat, where connectivity to CST is “But it was discontinued in 1994 after only seven trains chug into Khopoli, Today, more than 2,000 more frequent. Kishore Yashwardhan the [Mumbai-Pune] Expressway was built 115 km away. They pass by much of passengers take the Khopoli train to Tanna, 60, who runs a grocery shop and transport improved in the region.” eastern Mumbai and weekend stops CST. But only a few of them make the near Khopoli station, believes that the like Neral (which links to Matheran) and entire two-and-a-half-hour journey. residents will do better only if they The abandoned goods train Karjat to get to Khopoli, and once they The seats usually empty out and fill up can travel easily to the city. His father platform standing parallel to the do, they have nowhere else to go but at major stations like Karjat, Badlapur, Govardhandas Purshottamdas passenger platform at Khopoli station is a back the way they came. That train track Ulhasnagar or Kalyan, which are centres symbol of how the rest of the city views is more than just a band of steel. By of employment for Khopoli residents. Tanna served as the sarpanch the suburb: it’s a convenient outpost for connecting Khopoli to CST, it’s made the “There are few opportunities in Khopoli,” of Khopoli and after the Gram Panchayat industries that cannot be accommodated tiny town part of the idea of Mumbai. said Chawan. “Some of us go to Mumbai was replaced by a municipal council in in the city but it isn’t on the radar of in search of better wages.” The 25- 1970, he served as the president for eight the authorities. Its residents only have “Before the suburban trains year-old Chawhan wakes up at 5am years. In 1964, he witnessed the four-car a tenuous link to Mumbai – a single started running, no one had seen every day to catch the 06.13 local and passenger trains that connected Khopoli railway track that cuts across paddy Mumbai,” recalled local resident Prakash commute to Kurla, where he works as to Karjat being phased out by six-coach fields. “The train has certainly made Chawan. “It existed in our imagination a mobile-phone repairer. “No matter trains. “When my father inaugurated my life better,” Chawan said. “But some as a place that was out of reach.” That how tiring or frustrating it is, I have to the first suburban train in 1996, he was days, when I am leaning out of the train, changed on the afternoon of October keep going,” he said. He is certain that happy because Khopoli was finally getting I don’t know how long I can hold on.” 2, 1996, when the first train ran on the journey will pay off soon. He hopes what it needed,” Kishore Tanna said. “It the newly-electrified track, embracing it will help him save enough money to was the fruit of the struggle of Khopoli’s Khopoli into the suburban train network. start his own mobile-repairing shop residents, including my father. But now we in Khopoli in the next five years. need to carry the struggle forward.” He Former resident Sudhir Shetty, wants all the shuttles to and from Karjat who has since moved to Mumbai to work Not everyone has been strong to be converted to direct trains to CST. as a newspaper illustrator, remembers enough to sit out the ride. Shetty says the excitement of that day. “The engine that two of his art-school classmates Even though the tracks to was smothered in garlands,” Shetty dropped out mid-semester because Khopoli were laid down as early as 1856, said. “Everyone wanted a picture with “they just couldn’t handle the journey”. the station seemed to have been forgotten the train. But what we all were really Shetty graduated in 2002 and continued amidst the expansion of the Grand Indian excited about was the free ride to CST.” travelling to work until 2006, but today, Peninsula Railway. The village was of

046 / 02 housing 02 / 047 Paint It Green Kasara Zeenat Nagree. Population 15,912.* Distance from CST 120.56km. Six years ago, when fine artgraduate Deepak Patil looked at Khopoli’s verdant landscape from the window of the State Transport bus in which he was travelling, he Commuting time to CST by train knew he had found the inspiration he was looking for. The 21-year-old painter had 2 hours 30 minutes. left his home-town Dhule in search of work but had found a subject for his canvases *According to the 2001 census instead. Metro flashback Patil’s oil on canvas renditions of village life, rural women and the local bazaar Excerpts from the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, 1882. will be displayed at the Jehangir Art Gallery and the in September at an In 1824, the village was deserted and the Collector had to remit exhibition titled Pravaas, Marathi for travel. “The journeys I have undertaken are very assessment and settle a guard to induce the people to come important to me,” Patil explained. “On my way to Khopoli, I saw many beautiful villages back. This attempt seems to have failed. Two years later, Captain and fields. I tried to memorise the scenes in front of me so that I could transfer them Clunes notices it as a deserted place with one well. He remarks on canvas later.” To support his artistic calling, Patil started working as a teacher at the that the settlement of Kasara, whose people had fled during the Khopoli Chitrakala Mahavidyalaya. two previous years because of the oppressive system of pressing labourers, would be a great gain to troops and travellers. Today, Patil is the principal of the institute. He still follows his old routine, spending his morning teaching the basics of painting to fineart diploma students who come from Khopoli, Karjat, Alibaug, Dombivali and his evenings touring surrounding Villas in the village Kasara is tiny. It began to grow villages, stopping to take photographs and make watercolours. “What I like about Saumya Ancheri a little during in the early ’80s, when Khopoli is its proximity of to Mumbai,” Patil said. inhabitants from nearby villages started For most of the last two living there during the week so they Suburban train connectivity allows Patil to frequent the decades, only two kinds of travelers could commute to Mumbai for work more Jehangir Art Gallery, the Museum Gallery and the Nehru Centre twice booked tickets to Kasara, the last stop easily . The 2001 census, which only a week. “This journey from Khopoli to Mumbai has been a source on Central Railways’ northeastern line. counts full-time residents, put Kasara’s of inspiration too,” Patil added. Over the last three years, urban They were either tourists, heading population at a measly 15,912. Most of landscapes have appeared in Patil’s canvases. Mumbai’s streets, to picturesque Igatpuri or Nashik the town has sprung around the station, people, traffic and architecture have become a subject that he enjoys beyond, or Kasara residents headed in a haphazard cluster of two-storied painting. home after travelling to Mumbai for cement houses, a few grocery stores, employment, education, medical care even fewer places of worship, a police Patil knows that a chance to exhibit in Mumbai’s galleries or simply a movie and some shopping. station, two banks, a school, a primary isn’t a common occurrence for a Khopoli artist. So in 2010, he health care centre and one statue each established The Art Group, an exhibition hall on the first floor of the But in the last three years, of Shivaji and Babasaheb Ambedkar. The Food Hub, a rest stop on the Mumbai Pune Expressway. Fifteen a new breed of passengers has been nearest fire station, hospital, engineering minutes from the Khopoli exit, this gallery is the only venue in the getting off at Kasara station. They’re college and cinema are 32km away in area to exhibit art. He has convinced the Food Hub’s authorities to let owners of the slew of holiday homes the tahsil headquarters of Shahpur. artists use the hall for free, and only pay commissions on the works that have been sprouting around this sold. Patil scouts for local talent, mainly his friends and students, to sleepy railway outpost, and have left “All the development in Kasara showcase at The Art Group, hoping to entice passengers halting on the their pokey Mumbai flatsto spend the is only because of the trains,” said BS Expressway. But, Patil knows that if he wants to give his artistic career weekend in spacious second homes Aher, a railway employee who was posted a serious chance, he will have to look south. “The local market doesn’t that come with swimming pools, golf to Kasara for the first time in 1976 and even stock canvases or imported paints,” he said. “I want to be a full- courses, shopping complexes and other who now serves as Kasara’s station time artist and that’s why I am thinking of moving to Mumbai.” frills that Kasara has never seen before. manager. The CST-Kasara line was laid

048 / 02 housing 02 / 049 by the Great Indian Peninsular Railway extend up to `82.50 lakhs for a 3BHK villa. Hill’s residents get free membership to in 1861. But it was only in 1981 that In Khardi, the station just before Kasara, holiday resort chain Sterling Resorts in the station expanded from one platform a company called Villa Township, which case they need a change of scene. and three local trains every day to four says it has offices in Dubai, Singapore platforms and 16 daily trains. Last year, and the US, is building Our Town, a cluster At Orange City, the bungalow the number of people travelling the of cottages especially for NRI clients. complex closest to Kasara station, the two-and-a-half hours between Mumbai BlueBell Architect’s Landmarc Hills, about clubhouse is still under construction, and Kasara every day stood at 4,820, 5km from Kasara, has 438 villa-sized but only a dozen of the plot’s 230 villas enough to pack only two local trains. plots and is advertised as “resembling remain unsold. Each cost around `30 the yesteryear magic of Khandala”. lakhs.Jain Datar, a Mulund resident But the numbers belie the who has bought one of Orange City’s way the town has been growing. The Each retreat claims to be identical villas, has been making the expansion of the Mumbai-Agra NH3 built on non-agricultural land, comes 90km trip to Kasara every fortnight highway, which passes through Kasara, equipped with a clubhouse and gym, and for the past 18 months. “The location from four lanes to six is nearly complete offers in-house catering, housekeeping is ideal,” he said. “It’s on the highway and so are the themed bungalows that and 24-hour security that guarantees and about 4km from the station.” have sprung up along the way. It has against encroachment. The staff at Our put Kasara only an hour’s drive away for Town also look after clients’ vehicles Datar is in the merchant navy, the car-owning middleclass residents and organise treks and bonfire parties. and his wife and child keep up their of Kalyan, Thane and Mumbai’s eastern Suvarna Vilas says its guests can sun fortnightly ritual when he’s away at sea. suburbs. With that in mind, Ansal Housing on private pool decks, motor across He isn’t put off by the thought of owning Kasara and Shahpur, said that the price has started a project about 15km from the 225- acre property in all-terrain a holiday home in a town with no mall or of an acre in Kasara has appreciated Shahpur called Suvarna Vilas, which vehicles, tee off on the mini golf course, cinema. His villa is equipped with a DTH sevenfold from ` two lakhs per acre in boasts “Thai-style retreats”. Prices start fish in the stream that runs through the television connection and he’s waiting for 2008 to `15 lakhs today. Villa Township’s at `29.49 lakhs for a 1BHK villa and property, and head to the spa. Landmarc the clubhouse to be completed. He says website claims that “prices in Our Town that Orange City is, after all, “a getaway appreciated over 250 per cent in the last from the crowd and rush of Mumbai”. two years”. Villa Montana in its 400-acre township is now selling for `29.70 lakhs, Orange City builder Prateek while Casa Rio is going for `23.40 lakhs. Bhide says that there are plans for another four holiday-home complexes along the However, the potential for NH3, two of which will be launched next horizontal growth in Kasara doesn’t year. “Apart from the good connectivity guarantee that it will be paradise for by rail and road, there is decent – I would its residents. “You can have a villa or a not say great – atmosphere specifically larger apartment, but what’s the use if during the monsoon and winter,” he there is no infrastructure?” asked Naik said. He also added that Kasara’s of Disha Direct. “Rail access allows property prices make it a cheaper people to be aware of a town, proximity option than buying a plot in Pune. to highways help sell a location too, but ultimately there has to be road The prices won’t stay low for access, electricity and water supply.” long. Santosh Naik, the CEO of Disha Bhide of Orange City admitted that Direct, a marketing firm selling four Kasara’s major stumbling block was properties along the NH3 between the water supply. The region receives

050 / 02 housing 02 / 051 adequate rainfall, but “the reservoirs suffers every day but it has installed Panvel and distribution is not good”, he said. transformers for so that the water Population 104,031.* filtration plant is still kept working. For long-time Kasarakars, Distance from CST 49km. holiday-time still involves heading to Kasara’s tahsildar Sanjiv Commuting time to CST by train Nasik and Igatpuri. Locals can neither Jadhavar believes that boom in real- 1hour 18 min. afford homes in the new developments estate will help the locals in the long *According to the 2001 census nor benefit from the captive infrastructure run, since it will allow villagers to find that makes easy living possible in jobs as labourers and construction Metro flashback the bungalows. Landmarc Hills has workers. With shopping complexes and Excerpts from the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, 1882. borewells, a pump to draw water other urban recreations like movie halls It is an export centre for ganja, the narcotic made from hemp from the stream on its property and expected over the next 10 years, job leaves, which is brought in country carts of Ahmadnagar, Poona access to the government pipeline. opportunities may be greater still. But and Sholapur. The chief local industry is the making of cart 24-year-old resident Vijaya Gawari who wheels, of which every cart that comes from the Deccan carries But Kasara residents still rely on handles in data entry at the tehsildar’s a pair. The wheels cost about Rs 30 a pair. the local well because the municipality office, believes that progress won’t be as lines release water for only an hour every smooth. “People who stay near Orange A new beginning between several jurisdictional cracks. five days. Orange City’s Prateek Bhide City have to travel for 15-20 minutes Mustansir Dalvi Part of revenue district Raigad (but not said that 10 per cent of his project’s to the well in Kasara Budruk,” she said. the Raigad Lok Sabha constituency), infrastructure cost was spent on making “The tank with filtered water is for their A patch of road, about three not under the Navi Mumbai Municipal an artificial reservoir to harvest rainwater residents only.” Better connectivity to feet wide, crosses my path to the Corporation nor administered by the for the villas and the club’s swimming the big city hasn’t made locals consider railway station on the New Panvel side. Panvel Municipal Council, yet, apparently pool. The property is subject to the same themselves Mumbaikars yet. Station Elsewhere, the road continues, well tarred maintained by Cidco, our little hub six-hour load shedding that Kasara manager Aher said, “I’m a Kasarakar. regularly before each monsoon. This of urbanity is paternally challenged Mumbai is where people travel to earn.” singularity, however, remains untouched It’s at one end of the Harbour Line. and has been since the Harbour Line Although Panvel is a terminus for the Eventually, the boom Kasara made its way into town in 1995. Not just suburban line, through trains connect it may prove to be a disappointment to unmaintained: it was never even built. pan-India, from Hazrat Nizamuddin to both locals and moneyed vacationers. Every subsequent overlay of tar turns Thiruvananthapuram. Old and Naveen Naik said far-flung areas once marketed this dirty old track into an even deeper coexist, like Siamese twins, both conjoint as second homes are being re-sold as crater. Each morning, as I drive station- and severed by the railway and the NH4. first homes to people who can’t afford wards, I am compelled to make obeisance to live closer to the city. “People who here with a loud, teeth-rattling thump. New Panvel was a one-horse form a specific economic group, who’ve Departmental no man’s land between town when we first bought our home, bought weekend apartments in an area, the Central Railway and Cidco, to me and remained so until the millennium. I suddenly find that their green view is this patch represents Panvel itself. can get nostalgic about leisurely drives replaced with a block of flats and their down its wide, main avenue perpendicular neighbours aren’t weekend users but We found a home in New Panvel to the highway, through the town and budget home buyers,” said Naik. Add in the early ’90s. It was planned by Cidco, beyond into pristine wilderness, into the this to the fact that the new plots have circa 1970, as part of the New Bombay spectacular hillscape at the foothills of shut their gates to the everyday struggles Project. Across the highway is “old” Matheran. Every monsoon, we chased of Kasara’s locals, and it could just be Panvel (of the same vintage as the Big the elusive 180 degree rainbow. We got that the last stop on the railway line is City across the pond). New Panvel – or lucky, once. Then, we would return to this where trouble may actually soon start. Naveen Panvel, as it’s now known – falls well-planned place that, for 30 years,

052 / 02 housing 02 / 053 Forty years on, the wrinkles people – Hindus, Muslims, Jews and Panvel’s glorious peaks – Malang, Vishal, are visible, what with the administrative Jains – shared a Konkani culture, food, Prabal, Matheran and Karnala. Each ambiguity the city finds itself in. Now, clothing and Marathi as lingua franca. with signature crowns, they transport various levels of neglect can mean that me to the geological beginnings of the load-shedding hits us as if Panvel is a In the past 20 years or so, I have Mumbai Metropolitan Region. This entire rural backwater; local rickshawallahs seen attitudes stiffen: today, gentrification geography was the result of great and scorn metering (for every fuel price hike pervades, the old bonhomie is breaking sustained volcanic eruptions 65 million of one rupee, their base-fare rises by five); down. More and more overt displays of years ago that cooled to form the Deccan, garbage collection is sluggish; bins are religion and community foreground civic the and the isles that were usually taken apart by stray dogs, who life – flags and flex-banners pervade. I Bombay (eliminating all the dinosaurs rule the night and run in packs of 20. am uneasy when I encounter makeshift in the process). This craggy beauty notice-boards, not-so-subtly exhorting bookends Navi Mumbai to the east and The other Panvel, to my right as good religious behaviour. Money also signals the end of the Harbour Line. I get off the train, is, not unlike Mumbai, fuels change. Many (thankfully, not all) an old town in a new world. Historically of these places of worship are now Meanwhile, Panvel waits; both a port and a trading town, Panvel “renovated”, with RCC shikharas and patient, like the stone sentinels that was once the rice bowl of the north minarets sprouting incongruously. Many shadow it, patient like Mother Konkan, Konkan, with its famous Bazaar Peth, wadas too have given way to MHHSes, who waited decades for the railways to merely existed; a place for investors and Mirchi and Kapad Gallis. Panvel Gaon or Middle Class Housing Societies. link her to the . Panvel now waits absentee landlords, a few service shops dates back to 1725, when the Bapat Now, tall buildings crowd narrow (as I do) for a new airport, a new SEZ, a and several jewellers’ boutiques that Wada was built. It was elevated in the alleyways bottlenecked with newly fast train to Mumbai or even a three-foot fronted for moneylenders. Educational 1800s, when migrants from the Konkan acquired cars. No country for old men. patch of road to energise its fortunes – complexes grew and prospered because were populating Bombay, and Panvel and mine. Until that happens, I have to land and residential accommodation was Shahar was an alternate place to make a But I wallow in my good fortune, be content with “Asia’s largest railway available. “Then came the churches, home. When you talk to old-timers, they for, out of my window I can see, beyond station” (all steel decking and faux then came the schools, then came the tell you that a newcomer could always the whooshing SUVs on the Expressway, Egyptian columns), still in the making. lawyers, then came the rules; then came find home in Bapat Wada and a job in the trains and the trucks with their load,” Dhootpapeshwar, the ayurvedic factory. exactly as Dire Straits predicted in their While the factory is gone, the wada still song “Telegraph Road”. New Bombay shelters several hundred residents. developed, but this node awoke only after the Harbour Line reached Panvel in 1995. Then as now, festivals at the many temples, mosques, dargahs, In the ’90s and noughties, even a synagogue bring the faithful as we paid up EMIs at 16.5 per cent, thronging to Panvel. The oldest temple, Panvel surfed the crests and troughs the Ballaleshwar, is from the eighteenth of real estate vagary and emerged, century; the Beth-El Synagogue was unlike sisters Vashi and Kharghar, consecrated in 1849. When I visit resolutely downmarket. Migration these places today, I am struck by their fuelled economy; incoming communities similarity. On the outside, every place marked their presence with new religious of worship looks like every other. It only places – a temple to Kali, another to reveals the trappings of faith when I Ayappa, a new mosque, the unusually enter. This town was once a paragon named Cidco Vinayak mandir. of middle-class cosmopolitanism. Its

054 / 02 housing 02 / 055 Virar old Marcus Dabre, a cofounder of the Harit is still no good hospital in the area. For Population 118,945.* Vasai Sanrakshan Samiti environmental advanced treatment, people have to go group, filed a writ petition in the High as far as Mira Road”, 20 km away. Dist. from Churchgate station 60 km. Court against illegal constructions on Comm. time to Churchgate by train government land. The court went on Virar’s problems are rooted 1 hour 20 minutes. to identify 4.8 lakh illegal buildings. in its controversial history over the last *According to the 2001 census decade. The region, which is home to The illegal buildings and 10 lakh people, is now governed by the Metro flashback absence of planning have brought with Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation, which Excerpts from the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, 1882. them a host of problems in many parts of was formed last year. In the 1970s, Virar It has a railway station with refreshment and waiting rooms. this beautiful region. Today, when it rains was home to barely two lakh people and The station traffic returns show an increase in passengers from in Virar, sewage spills into the streets its rural infrastructure protected it from 48,294 in 1873 to 83,176 in 1880. Virar is the nearest station for of many neighbourhoods. Residents the meddlings of construction companies. visitors to the old town of Sopara. of Virar have to contend with frequent But in 1988, the state government power cuts and water shortages. decided to open 85 sq km of the region’s A very wild west to the west. Fishing villages and paddy 410-sq-km green zone to builders. Aditya Kundalkar and Suhani Singh farmers’ cottages co-exist with multi- In Agashi village, for instance, Although allegations of corruption flew storey townships that have become many residents have a time-table thick and fast, two years later, the state In 2007, Zareef Ahmed, chief home to families that find Mumbai pinned to their calendars to remind them government announced a plan to open technology officer with an IT firm in city too costly and claustrophobic. during which six hours of the day they an additional 20 sq km for development. Noida, came to Mumbai on a week-long will lose power. Others, like Samson vacation and instantly fell in love with But the picturesque town that D’Silva, have simply given up the battle. That second plan was halted Virar. He visited the famous Ram Mandir, charmed Ahmed is rapidly changing. To make sure that the adventure sports in the face of street-level agitations relaxed on Arnala beach with his family New complexes are starting to encroach club that he runs isn’t affected by power and a legal challenge by the Harit and ended up buying a flat near his on the government-mandated green cuts, he has installed an inverter. “Some Vasai Sanrakshan Samiti group, brother-in-law’s apartment in MB Estate zone, which is supposed to cover 78 people are shifting to generators too,” formed in 1989 by activists Francis in Virar (W). He also set up virarlive.com, per cent of the 526-sq-km Vasai-Virar said D’Silva. “It’s going to become D’Britto, the parish priest of St Thomas a blog to provide information about the region. All construction is technically like some parts of Delhi, where in the Cathedral in Vasai’s Sandor area, and neighbourhood. “Thankfully, cellphone banned here so that the trees can evening all the generators start up Marcus Dabre, a trade union leader. connectivity was poor in Virar,” said help Mumbai breathe easier. and then it’s business as usual.” Ahmed. “I was completely away from the But in August 1990, the Harit world for two whole days. It was a reason “The Vasai-Virar belt was always Unfortunately, there is no quick Vasai activists realised that they’d won to visit the place again and again.” meant to be a buffer zone for Mumbai,” fix for the water shortage. Residents a pyrrhic victory when , said Chandrashekhar Prabhu, an urban of Virar’s Jayant Paranjpe Nagar, like the chief minister of Maharashtra, Virar, 60 kilometres from planner, architect and former president Ramesh Gupte, have to walk five minutes put the City Industrial & Development Churchgate, is the last stop on the of the Maharashtra Housing and Area to Bolinj to collect drinking water from Corporation in charge of developing the local Western Railway. It is home to the Development Authority. The lowlying areas public taps. “When people from Mumbai green belt. Following Cidco’s arrival, seventeenth-century Jeevdani temple, of the Vasai-Virar region and the Vasai and visit us, they don’t even want to rinse their more buildings sprung up. By 2001, which attracts thousands of women Thane creeks should act as a drainage mouths with this water”, let alone drink the number of people living in the Vasai pilgrims who hope a visit will help them area for excess monsoon water, ensuring it because it’s so salty, said Gupte, a BJP Virar belt had touched 6.8 lakh. conceive, and it was once home to the that Mumbai doesn’t flood, Prabhu added. activist. “But we use it for everything.” Bollywood actor . Virar has the Suresh Kamat, editor of a local newspaper Today, Virar offers some of lush green Sahyadris in the east and the But in practice, the situation is Vasai Samata, saidthat despite 20 the cheapest homes along the Western sandy beaches of Arnala and Kalamb quite different. In January 2007, 70-year- years of strong press coverage, “there Railway line. Five years ago, property

056 / 02 housing 02 / 057 rates here were approximately Rs is the cousin of Hitendra Thakur, the that plans to improve the region’s water belt is going to become a mini-city. 1,100 per sq ft. Today, they have risen leader of the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi supply are underway. As part of these It’s going to have a life of its own.” to Rs 2,500 per sq ft but are still lower political party that has been ruling the development plans, Patil recently met than Mira Road’s Rs 3,700 a sq ft. region for over two decades. Hitendra with representatives of GTZ India, a The Maharashtra Industrial Thakur’s elder brother Jayendra alias German company based in New Delhi Development Corporation has proposed But the houses in Virar come Bhai Thakur spent nearly nine years in whose objective, according to their that a new 5.59-sq-km industrial area with a different sort of price tag attached, jail after being convicted in 1994 for website, is “to improve people’s lives on a be created in Vasai-Virar to establish some people claim. “These houses have murdering Suresh Dube, a Vasai-based sustainable basis”. GTZ India will help the electronic and plastic industries. It’s been built on land that was taken from builder who refused to join hands with municipal corporation to set up sewage precisely this sort of development that the locals via muscle-power,” alleged Thakur. Dube was shot dead in October treatment plants, rainwater harvesting leaves old-timers like Dabre deeply Vivek Pandit, an MLA from Vasai who has 1989. But Hitendra Thakur doesn’t see initiatives and solar energy solutions. disappointed. He feels this is just the been working to protect the land rights a problem with his family’s control of beginning of the end for Mumbai’s lungs. of the state’s tribal communities. Pandit power. “It’s not we who decide these In addition to Viva, other alleges that the Thakur family have had things,” he told Time Out. “It’s the people developers including HDIL, Evershine “What’s left now?” asked Dabre. an undue influence on the development of who have voted for us all these years.” and Mayfair have built townships here. “The banana plantations are gone. The the region. Their mammoth construction The Rustomjee Group, for instance, coast is destroyed, it’s full of filth. Our company, the Viva Group, has established Those voters, it’s clear, have not is setting up a Virar Global City over own people are destroying the region’s townships, a college and a supermarket. included the supporters either of Pandit 217 acres. “Like New York city has its ecology.” People who have bought homes or Harit Vasai. But even people who boroughs, I think Virar will become one in this region, like Zareef Ahmed, are The Thakurs also wield positions oppose the Thakurs aren’t agreed about of Mumbai’s boroughs,” said Boman also unhappy. “Development doesn’t of authority in the Vasai-Virar Municipal their vision for the region. While Pandit Irani, managing director of the Rustomjee only mean buildings,” said Ahmed. “It Corporation. Rajeev Patil, the mayor of resists the idea of all development, Dabre Group and president of the Mira-Virar also means proper facilities for everyone the Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation, of Harit Vasai believes that they need to chapter of the Maharashtra Chamber and it shouldn’t come at the cost of take a more realistic view of the situation. of Housing Industry, an association destroying the existing settlements.” In their agitation during the 1980s, they of developers that takes up issues of explained their position with the slogan, infrastructure with local municipalities. “No structure without infrastructure.” Irani contends that everything Dabre said that they want the developers have learnt while building development to come in a manner that’s Mumbai over the last 30 years will be more planned, in the way that Cidco applied to the Mira-Virar region. Virar developed Navi Mumbai. “The municipality Global City will have an in-house sewage has to be developed; it’s necessary,” said treatment system and an underground Dabre. “We cannot stay a village forever. drainage system. The streets within But progress will not happen under the the township will be 24 metres wide, [village-level] Gram Panchayats”that with three metres of footpath space, are being supported by Vivek Pandit. and streetlights will be solar-powered. Irani is confident that in ten years, the For its part, the newly formed area will be a commercial hub that Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation seems is as bustling as the Bandra-Kurla to be making the right sounds. Rajeev Complex. “Eventually, when the Western Patil, mayor of the Vasai-Virar Municipal Railway line gets extended to reach Corporation and cousin of Viva group Dahanu, similar development will start owner Hitendra Thakur, told Time Out there as well,” said Irani. “That entire

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