Story #1

Last day of our MBA’s written-examination. Being a part of Business Design gives you an opportunity to spend next trimester out in the industry. That definitely called for a class party. Incidentally, it turned out to be my first time at a pub lit with dim and dull lights and loud music to trouble. The interesting thing in this otherwise boring affair was the exuberant discussion on pub being spacious; a rarity among pubs in Mumbai. A friend of mine Pune who secretly witnessed this discussion scoffed on our joys and made an intriguing statement, “You Mumbai guys have a screwed up definition of space. In Pune, this will be considered as a tight and compact space. Come to Pune; I will take you to real spacious pubs.” And I relooked at all those happily chirpy people only to realise all were born and brought up in Mumbai.Again, for the second time in the day, I first time thought how many of us Mumbaikar’s perceive space: live, operate and enjoy.

Story #2

Story #3

Since 1900 Mumbai has built the chawl system for migrants who arrived in search of livelihood during the boom of cotton textile mills until 1970s. Chawl system is a setup where They are often 4 to 5 stories with about 10 to 20 tenements, referred to as kholis, which literally mean ‘rooms’ on each floor. This chawl is the birthplace of a cosmopolitan society for which Mumbai continues to be known for!

Why Chawl but? It is no surprise that Mumbai has been built by migrants. Majority of these migrants have started off by living in chawls. Later, due to upward mobility, after they switched to better-paying jobs the next tangible upgrade in their lives was to buy a flat in an Apartment. This is the most commonly found journey of any middle-class and upper middle-class family stationed in Mumbai since decades. While they lead considerable amount of years in chawl, they had few constraints: like minimum 10 tenants had to use a common bathroom, limited water-supply through handful taps that made them stand in the queue, no privacy for a newly wed couple and according to Wikipedia, the partition of kitchen in the kholi acted as mini bedroom. Many of these migrants were from different places. Mumbai was as much new even for someone arriving from Dhule as to someone from Hospet. In chawl all shared a commonality-new to the city and set out to survive and flourish. They shared walls with neighbours and hence they were updated on all happenings in my house. Living away from their native places people formed a neighbour-family or chawl-family. Then begun activities to conform to the dynamics within the family: exchange of food dishes, an emergency backup for sugar, tea powder and spices & condiments, asking someone to escort your children to school and so on. Collective celebration of festivals like Ganapti festival (pandal) Kojagiri Poornima, Satyanarayan Puja, Gudi Padwa and one night of Diwali. This habit continues till date. In almost every building, apartment and complex, collective celebration continues. These values have been passed on to next generations. Also, there is this perception I have come across, you have to see their faces every morning and it’s inevitable . You cannot avoid. So build good relations or repair fractured relations. If today I help them, the favour will be returned during my tough times. This attitude of helping initially started with neighbours and soon extended into a behaviour of helping whosoever asks you. It manifests into as simple as going out of your way to help someone find an address. This is why you find Mumbaikars, Marathi or non-Marathi to be friendly and eager to bond.

Story #4 The Other Effect

Now that we have traced how space coupled with other socio-economic factors determined the attitude and behaviour of Mumbaikars it has come to my notice the same space constraint has had another effect on our perception of products vis-a-vis space. Right from chawl and even when you got a one room apartment, space management became more important. Hence the products these families dealt with also consumed space in the little room. Many times, the members were tempted to buy more products: one that catered to their wants and aspirations, but always found the at loggerheads with space! As a result of which the buying had to be postponed. In this phase, probably there was a shift in our inclination when we chose products. Certain traits like is the product vertical in size or sleek or movable or foldable or hangable became the parameters for buying. The sector most affected is electronics and consumer durables. Imagine living in one room kitchen and having a kid just passing 10th standard and demanding computer. Two problems: money and space. Money can be arranged, what about space? It has to be re-managed. That’s when the multi-purpose computer furniture flourished in the market. Now you can keep your desktop, cpu, speakers and all your books/documents in the same designated space. That is why the famous Godrej Kapaat (closet) was like a closet that held your important documents, bank passbooks and clothes: casual and special occasion. The Godrej Kapaat was a tailor made for people of Mumbai: Gave a small closet as tijori for keeping jewellery, gave a drawer to keep all your documents and of course provisions for keeping male apparels and hangers for saris. Thus the design of the product had to be inspired from the space constraints. In case you are still not convinced, do a small exercise. Go to the kitchen. Count the number of vertical jars used for storing. Repeat the same for horizontal or flat jars. Find the ratio. My belief is that our behaviour of still having more vertical and hangable objects/products stems from our past of dealing with limited space. Though you live in a bigger house, somewhere we have continued with the same mindset.