MUMBAI PAUSED

Ghatkopar

Revisiting Mumbai

Monsoon 2010 Series: Holidays ahead.

The rain will stop sooner or later, but there's going to be a Ganesh and Eid holiday coming soon for sure. That's the reason, a temporary fairground is being prepared for the sunny days ahead.

However, if you ask the kids who study in Government Schools like these two brothers Abu Saad and Abdul, what they are doing on a weekday morning when they should be at school, they will all say that there are no classes because of the rain. And no, it's not because their school does not have a roof, it's because the teacher is on an extended holiday thanks to the rain.

Mumbai (Reposting from 2009)

2009. The year Indian municipalities discovered the wall.

From Mumbai to Chennai, Bhubaneshwar to Bangalore, 2009 saw the city authorities giving painters, people and graffiti artists permission to paint the walls.

In Bangalore, it was started as a way to stop film posters from being plastered on the walls. In Mumbai, it was to keep the Tulsi Pipe Road from returning to the stink hole it was. And in all places it was an attempt to showcase the city or the state or spread a message.

In Bangalore, Chennai and Bhubaneshwar, the wall paintings are straight out of the Govt. Tourism Department brochures but they did manage to get some good artists from the art colleges. In true TN style, Karunanidhi and Stalin have claimed that it's their idea to beautify their city.

Luckily, Mumbai is different. Here people have been allowed the freedom to paint whatever they want. (Pictures of the Tulsi Pipe Road paintings by Surendra Chaurasiya)

The writing on the walls of these cities are clear. All over India, the governments are still stuck in the Pre Berlin Wall days. The days of Government control and censorship. They are afraid to let the people speak their mind out.

Luckily, Mumbai breaks that mould. Even if it is only few privileged ones who went to paint on Tulsi Pipe Road, the style for the paintings came from the poor gallis off D'Monte Street.

Links:

The Wall Project - Mumbai

WallFlowers. Children of Bangalore paint the city's walls

Bangalore Mahanagara Palike's Wall paintings clicked by Plum Tree

Chennai Wall Painting project

Pictures of Wall Paintings in Bhubaneshwar

Bhubaneshwar Wall Paintings and its impact

Tulsi Pipe Road paintings. Clicked by Surendra Chaurasiya

Random Wall Art - Bangalore

Wooster Collective: Street Art from around the world