Professor Mustansir Dalvi, who has been a resident of Navi Mumbai since past 20 years, says the satellite city has a heritage far richer than Mumbai and pre-dates the island city by centuries. In his book of poems titled brouhahas of cocks, Dalvi traces the history of the Konkan plateau as a whole all the way back to the jurassic period as a fitting reply to whoever thought the city didn't have a heritage
In your book, there is a section of poems about Navi Mumbai that you have titled 'Urbs Secunda'. How did you come to decide on this title?
Urbs, in Latin, means town. After the British settled Bombay, they built most of their monumental public buildings that gave the city its first urban image. Once the Empire was established, India was the jewel in its crown and Bombay the first city of Empire, which they glowingly called Urbs Prima Indis. New Bombay or Navi Mumbai, for me, is therefore Urb Secunda, which literally means second city.
You have written one about specific areas in Navi Mumbai, like 'Terna Circle'. It's not that special a landmark. What made you do that?
Well, it is a landmark for rickshaw-wallahs if you want to come visit me. Terna circle a small roundabout at the edge of New Panvel. The development of spaces within Navi Mumbai over the last 20 years has been slow, and fitful. Not everything is in place. While good streetlights and proper paving took their time to arrive, people were already there and had occupied spaces. So, 'Terna Circle' is about a city in the making. Another poem, 'Friday Mosque in Navi Mumbai' talks about an incomplete building that becomes the larger metaphor for an incomplete city. Urb Secunda, such as it is, is located somewhere in the middle ground between incompleteness and occupation, even today. I hope that sense emerges from these poems.
In the book, you imply that in Navi Mumbai much of the past still remains from before the time that the city was planned and built in the 1970's.
Navi Mumbai was never a blank slate. Even before development started here, the mainland across the harbor from Bombay was variously inhabited. Navi Mumbai is superimposed on that which preceded it. Some poems do make the past emerge in the present. For example, the aamrahi or mango orchards are ubiquitous all over the Konkan, of which Navi Mumbai is a part. 'Pushing Fruit' talks about one such mango orchard close to my own house, which is now a public garden maintained by CIDCO. Now, you can find jogging tracks and benches and park-equipment, things like that, but a few mango trees still stand. These trees pre-date Navi Mumbai. They still blossom in season and still give fruits of sorts. In more than a few poems I have tried to show how history keeps making its presence felt by poking its way through all things contemporary.
What is a good place to find out the history of Navi Mumbai?
That is a very broad question. If one really wants answers, one has to work towards it. There is no museum of Navi Mumbai, no central location for resources of information.
What are your immediate concerns about the city?
I am concerned about the loss of a lot of our built heritage, which is largely unknown and unlamented, because of the impression that Navi Mumbai is a completely new city built on completely open ground. Several beautiful wadas that were almost 200 years old have now been replaced by housing societies, and man-made lakes or talavs, which were the highlight of these areas, are now being filled up. Research on Navi Mumbai has shown that buildings that pre-dated the 70's include some very interesting examples of religious and domestic architecture. Places of worship in Navi Mumbai were largely domestic in scale. In the past, they all looked self-similar. Today, mainly as a consequence of rising affluence and aspiration these buildings are being transformed with modern materials and construction to highlight religious affiliations and separate identities. This, in a sense, is a sign of the age old cosmopolitanism breaking down.
Is there an underlying theme of your book besides the poems about Navi Mumbai?
In any book of poems, unless there is a project like Arun Kolatkar's 'Jejuri', for instance, themes are more implied than obvious. Most books are collections of poems, written at various times, talking about different things. The implied theme of 'Brouhaha of Cocks' is 'location'. Most of the poems locate you in a specific place. These are poems of geography and the people that inhabit these environments.
What is it that you love about Navi Mumbai?
Navi Mumbai has an urban heritage, which is even older than Bombay. As an architect, that knowledge gives me a certain delight. What I mostly love is its spectacular geography. I stay in Panvel and all around me there are some of the most beautiful hill-scapes you can find anywhere in India. From my house I can see, on the one side the Karnala funnel followed by Prabal and Vishalgadh and Matheran. On the other side, in the distance is Haji Malang. Each one has an iconic shape and Panvel is sited right in the middle. The Konkan is very rich in all types of landscapes. I have tried to talk about this in my poem 'The Last Dinosaur walks Matheran'. Even island Mumbai is a part of Konkan. I have always looked at Mumbai and Navi Mumbai as a continuum, and I am very lucky to call both home.
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