Bombay, a reluctant convert to Mumbai, evokes kaleidoscopic responses and emotions. As a city, it has spawned enough books, in both the fiction and non-fiction genres, to fill up a library. Not to forget the movies, of course. So, when one of India’s best photo-journalists trains his lenses on the country’s commercial capital, it might be justified to let the expectations run riot. An entire generation grew up admiring Raghu Rai’s breath-taking and often poignant camera work as it captured the temper of a nation lurching unsteadily from Indira Gandhi’s stifling control raj to a youthful Rajiv Gandhi’s experiments, through to the early years of liberalisation and economic reforms. Mr Rai’s frames were able to encapsulate this transition from state-controlled autarky to a stumbling, muddling acceptance of free markets. His photographs were pregnant with aspiration and bursting with the contradictions, exemplifying the mood of a country torn between semi-feudalism, quasi-capitalism and incipient fascism.
In her book On Photography, philosopher-novelist Susan Sontag commented: “Photographs really are experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood.” Mr Rai’s images in the past have managed to ably, and subtly, acquire the conscience of a nation in the throes of a conversion.
It is, therefore, crushingly disappointing that Mr Rai has not been able to bring this epochal quality to his book on Mumbai, thereby adding yet another eminently forgettable and mediocre coffee-table edition to the vast number of formulaic also-rans already in existence. Are the quality of photographs bad? No, not really. Many of the photographs bear the trademark brilliance of a Raghu Rai visual sketch — a story caught in mid-flight, a conversation paused to let the emphasis sink in, a moment in a humdrum life frozen and made historic. This is true especially in the section on portraits of well-known personalities — Shobhaa De, Bal Thackeray, J R D Tata, Raj Kapoor, Pandit Jasraj, Subhash Chandra and R K Laxman.
But, therein lies the central problem with this book. The book traverses mostly the familiar, a path that is well trodden and well documented. And, it seems to be severely in self-denial. The journey from Bombay to Mumbai is now irreversible and the sooner there is acceptance of this phenomenon – in the sociological sense at least – the richer will be any attempt to portray the soul of this sprawling megalopolis. The book harks back to a “Bombay” that is now only a sepia dream, far removed from the hardscrabble and gritty reality of this city.
Any city is an organic entity. Bombay, too, keeps expanding the boundaries of its outer reaches and continues to welcome the ever-increasing multitude of outsiders and migrants. In short, the book fails to get under the skin of a city that is no longer confined to its original southern configuration. The book’s photographs concentrate exclusively on the southern tip of Bombay and, therefore, fail miserably to portray a city that has spread further northwards as well as eastwards.
The mention of the word “Bombay” certainly conjures up a smorgasbord of visions — the spectacular Marine Drive, the tony neighbourhood on Malabar Hill, the greying quaint portrait of a Parsi family, or romantic Chowpatty, the historic Rajabhai Tower, the towering Bombay Stock Exchange. But then Bombay is all of this and then some. Bombay is also about the leafy lanes and charming cottages of Bandra, the close-knit old communities of Vile Parle and Andheri, the Gujarati-dominated neighbourhoods of Ghatkopar and Borivali, the burgeoning suburban districts of Powai, Chembur and Thane. And much, much more. In his introduction to the book, journalist Vir Sanghvi says as much: “…South Bombay is no longer the heart of the city. As the suburbs have become more important, the centre has shifted to the north.” But the book seems blissfully ignorant of this shift, and trains its focal length on the dog-eared and the shop-worn.
Overall, the book seems a bit like a slapdash effort. It also betrays signs of the publishers rushing to get the edition out on the market. The choice of photographs, for example, displays a lack of proper thought, or a method or even a simple, binding common theme. There is a curious attempt to build a bridge between the city’s history and its current avatar — through the use of old photographs of prominent city landmarks and juxtaposing them with Raghu Rai’s contemporary representation. This doesn’t seem to serve any purpose at all. In the end, the book claims to deal with immortal dreams, but actually gives up on those who continue to dream every day and contribute – in whatever form – to the miracle known as Bombay.
The author is head, Policy & Research, Dhanlaxmi Bank. Views are personal
MUMBAI: WHERE DREAMS DON’T DIE
Raghu Rai with an introduction by Vir Sanghvi
Om Books International
192 pages; Rs 2,995