Alley oops and its up

Chimbai village is one of the original fishing communities that the Portuguese found when they first settled the southern end of Salsette Island in 1534. Lying just to the north of the seven islands that were later joined to form Bombay, the houses and tiny lanes that wander down to the Arabian Sea speak of earlier times.
Goats amble amongst the local fish and food vendors who set up on the pavement at meal times.
The heavy furniture for one of these stalls is being carefully hoisted high onto a head for transportation by these two women in brilliant saris. 

How Sanganeri met Sarasa

This glowing wood-block printed vintage silk textile is displayed at the National Handloom Expo 2012 in Bandra.
Taking a team of 10 artisans over a fortnight to print, the heavy silk hanging was made in Mumbai to be exhibited at a Festival of India held in Germany more than 25 years ago.
Outlines of the 7" curved shapes were printed first, then filled in with colored patterns printed through paper stencils... each infill is unique.
Discussions with a printer also revealed that the hanging is in the Sanganeri style of block printing, which was developed in Sanganer near Jaipur.
A textile center for hundreds of years, brightly colored, high quality block-printed cottons or calicoes from Sanganer were coveted by Europeans and Asians alike. Calicoes formed a lucrative part of the trade items travelling the marine Silk Road and later helped build the fortunes of the great European trading companies.
Strangely, a very similar pattern to the one in this textile is commercially produced in Japan today. The motifs and colors of the modern Japanese version are called Sarasa. Indian printed calicoes (often from Sanganer) provided many of the designs for Sarasa. These calicoes were brought to Japan by early trade and were prized by the aristocracy.
So today, both India and Japan seem to have a historical claim to this charming pattern.

Panchos still open

Sudden confusion and destruction reign in front of this popular Bandra restaurant. The front awning has been ripped off, and the outdoor concrete patio chipped back.
Pancho's and other ground floor restaurants had encroached on the pavement in front of their apartment building. So the Bombay High Court, ruling on resident's complaints, directed the city to remove the illegal construction. Apparently acting without the required 24 hours notice, the city administration did so on Wednesday. The restaurants deny encroachment and plan to fight back, saying that when they bought 15 years ago, many of the complaining residents had not even moved in.

Repelled by dung

A weekly fixture for health conscious Mumbaikars, the Bandra Sunday Farmers Market thows up some unexpected offerings.
Strangest of all last Sunday, were little cakes of cow dung, wrapped in lots of 5, sold as a mosquito repellant called "sweet dreams".
You break one in half, light it, and then let it smolder away for a night free from airborne poisons (conventional coils release chemical insecticides as they burn) and mosquitoes.
There is precedent for this use of dung. Traditional village homes in rural India have always had a coating of cow dung mixed with clay applied to the walls and floors... to provide insulation and to act as an insect repellant.
Recent research has found that burning cow dung may release antioxidants... and so can help clean polluted air. Is it possible that Mumbaikars, choking in smog, may soon rethink their distaste for the dung of their wandering urban cows?

Subcontinent sub-cultures

Gazing serenely out at museum visitors for more than 100 years, these painted plaster heads show the diversity of cultures on the subcontinent. On display long before the partition of British India in 1947, there are races exhibited here who now live primarily in either Pakistan or Bangladesh.
The Sindhi (named after the Indus River) gentleman on the right is a case in point. Descended from early Indo-European invaders whose ancient conquests pushed east of the Indus, Muslim Sindhis are today found mostly in Pakistan.
These near life size busts fill just one case of the many containing interpretive plaster models throughout the Bhau Daji Lad Museum.

Saving Bombay's legacy

On September 5th 1855, Lord Elphinstone, governor of Bombay, appointed a committee to establish a museum of economic products that would showcase "the raw products of Western India and the methods of converting them into manufactured articles and to gather together a collection of natural history specimens."
Further, craftsmanship and aesthetics were to be employed to scientifically document every aspect of commercial and community life.
By 2003, neglect had left both the ornamental building and its unique collection  derelict. After intensive restoration ending in 2008, this beautiful Palladian structure... housing the oldest museum in Mumbai... stands today as a permanent memorial to India's remarkable artisans and their crafts.
In 2005, a UNESCO award recognized the unique private and public partnership that both funded the restoration of the building and the exhibits, and also provides ongoing support to the museum.
Built in the great tradition of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and in fact originally named after this institution, the reborn Bhau Daji Lad Museum showcases its own high Victorian craftsmanship and fabulous collection and is also now a partner of the V&A. 

Laccifer Lacca lacquer

In 1590, an anonymous English writer described the Indian insect-derived lac process; "they take a piece of the lac of what colour they will, and as they turn it when commeth to his fashion they spread the lac upon the whole piece of wood which presently, with the heat of the turning melteth the waxe so that it enter into the crests and cleaveth unto it, about the thickness of a mans nail : then they burnish it over with a broad straw or dry rushes so cunningly that all the wood is covered with all, and it shineth like glass, most pleasant to behold, and continueth as long as the wood being well looked unto..." This model is displayed in the Bhau Daji Lad Museum of applied art.

Whisperer of secrets

On the verandah at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya museum, this ancient stone Nandi sits with its tail tucked in to show submission and obedience.
In Indian religion, a bovine makes its first appearance as a god in the Indus civilization where dairy farming was the main form of agriculture.
Later, a bull god was the only one strong enough to carry Shiva the transformer. He also guarded Shiva's house, was his main disciple and led his army.
In fact, for today's Hindu, Nandi is so entwined with Shiva, that a prayer whispered in Nandi's right ear is said to be immediately attended to by Shiva.