Robert Stephens: The man who reimagined Bombay into a city that it could have been

Robert Stephens: The man who reimagined Bombay into a city that it could have been

Robert Stephens’ new book, which came out this month, is a rigorously researched and originally illustrated compilation of civic projects for the Maximum City that remained on paper

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Robert Stephens: The man who reimagined Bombay into a city that it could have been

Call it love. Call it conviction_._ Whatever you call it, Robert Stephens fell for Mumbai, hard. One visit brought an epiphany — Mumbai is the place for me — which when chased turned the American’s life over the next few decades in a new direction. He relocated to the city and landed a job; found a creative pursuit that made him well-known in his profession and beyond; married Tina Nandi, photographer and graphic designer; and they had a son.

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Stephens, as an architect and civic historian, has enriched the city’s culture, but remains quite low-profile. He is a principal at RMA Architects, which has designed, among other buildings, the CSMVS Visitors’ Centre and Children’s Museum at Kala Ghoda, and is working on other high-profile public-use structures. In his private life, he is also a civic historian who has informed more than a few Mumbaiites’ perspective on how they’d like their city to be developed, mainly through his latest book. Yet, many Mumbaiites don’t know about the man who has entered their intellectual life in subtle ways, most recently and notably through Bombay Imagined: An Illustrated History of the Unbuilt City.

Image Courtesy: Facebook/@bombayimaginedbook

The book came out this month, a rigorously researched and originally illustrated compilation of civic projects for Bombay and Mumbai that remained on paper. It’s a book about what could have been, also a book about what could be, if you imagine it — alternate Bombays or Mumbais, alternate timelines, if you like.

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Bombay Imagined mentions, as per his website, “200 unrealised urban visions — aspirations of an evolved metropolis boasting everything from humane housing and expanded parks to sanitation systems and more. Ideas that never saw the light of the day are richly illustrated with archival drawings, contemporary speculations and artistic overlays, illuminating long-lost futures from the city’s never-before-seen past. Bombay Imagined is a testimony to the audacious dreams of city-lovers…”

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Such audacious dreams as a South Bombay (as it was called then) entirely free of private vehicles, as envisioned by journalist Ajit Bhattacharjea, and a 400-acre park at Mahalaxmi proposed by Bombay’s first municipal commissioner and collector, Arthur Crawford. The book’s been covered extensively in the media, which honed in on the book’s subtext of missed opportunities to make Mumbai more liveable.

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As a civic historian, Stephens says, “(I’m interested in) cities, and stories of people engaging with cities in the past. We can relate to it, we experience it. We can constantly shuffle between that person’s history and engagement and what we’re facing right now. Even subconsciously we’re doing that.”

He says that one of his concerns, an allied one, is to study initiatives to make “urban life decent… if I want to take (my son) to a park, he shouldn’t have to jump over open manholes. If we go to a fort, we shouldn’t have to cross Mahim Creek and cover our nose because it smells like shit”. He adds, “It’s these types of moments; there’s justification why they’re like that, but there’s no excuse why they’re still like that. I am actively engaged in analysing these issues and making them understandable and simple as they can be, even though they are complex, often.”

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Stephens has a caveat, though: There is no ‘why’ to his enquiries as a historian. He says he isn’t trying to critique anyone or saying Mumbai will be better this way or that. “(My work) is like walking through a museum: the art is there, and it’s up to the visitors to create their own narrative, pursue what interests them and leave what doesn’t interest them,” he says.

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A few projects mentioned in the book are… unrealised, thankfully. For instance, the Bombay Municipal Corporation, in 1949, planned to fill in the Banganga Tank, which has historic and religious importance, to make it a children’s park. And further back, in 1850, someone whose name is lost to history planned to make the historic Elephanta Caves, lying just outside Bombay jurisdiction at the time, “a tavern and ballroom”, to thwart anti-alcohol activists. In more recent times, plans to have an airport at green and coastal Alibaug never fruitened; apart from causing ecological issues, it would have made people travel “five-six hours to get to the airport, the same as a flight to Europe”, Stephens says.

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But many projects, Stephens found, would have benefited his beloved city. Some projects, like Robert Fairbarn’s, were scarily ambitious. Fairbarn proposed “the biggest reclamation scheme in Bombay’s history”. He wanted to “reclaim all of Back Bay” (its jewel-like feature is Marine Drive). Says Stephens, “The new district he would have created would be 24 times larger than (the business district of) Fort.”

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Another proposal broached reclaiming all of Mahim Bay. But many projects, like one which would have built affordable housing near Churchgate station so it would not become an area only for the rich, would have made the city more diverse. And Arthur Crawford’s 400-acre park at Mahalaxmi would have been a recreational, restorative gift to the overcrowded city. As he researched the unrealised proposals, Roberts found the knowledge changed him as a person, broadened his perspective about himself and his practice, which reflected in his work.

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Stephens’s research, whether walking or textual exploration, has given him a “set of values”: Scale. As concepts go, it’s a Swiss army knife. He defines scale as more than high rise or low rise. He says, “Scale (is) more in the sense of how a human being or book or any artistic creation relates to both its end user and people around it. It’s that relationship. That’s the scale.”

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He continues, “I think one of the greatest values we have as a firm and me as a person is trying to build on a scale that doesn’t necessarily mean high rise-low rise. Even if it’s high rise, it’s designed in a way that it can relate to its users and others, without turning its back on the people who the building is not designed for. So it’s a little sensitive to others, that’s kind of the bottom line… Scale means you don’t just do something for yourself, you do it with the knowledge it will impact others.”

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He found many proposals, either workable or not, in rare books. Some of these books he collected; it’s his other passion. Aiding him in the pleasant errand are the book sleuths who set up shop near Churchgate Railway Station — the second hand book sellers. “(The number of booksellers) is reduced, but it’s still there, at Flora Fountain especially. I thought the pandemic would wipe them out, but they’re all back,” he says.

They see him browsing their stacks of books on the broad footpaths every week. For other old reference books, Roberts also, during work trips abroad, visited libraries such as the Royal Institute of British Architects and the British Library, both in London. Besides these, he also got 28 other libraries from various countries to scan and send him pages from books of interest, and he had to pay scanning and other fees.

Third, his book showcases another of his passions, perhaps the one that ties everything together: A thirst for discovery.

Flashback: As a Bachelor’s in Architecture student at Virginia Tech, USA, Stephens was given to taking car rides in the Virginia backcountry and soaking in its distinctive architecture and green landscapes. Later, in December 2006, two college friends of his from Mumbai chose their Christmas vacations to visit their families. He accompanied them, stayed at their Mumbai homes and soaked in their hospitality, their sense of community and connectedness. And while he was here, he took in the city he was visiting for the first time, and fell for it. It resonated with his sense of scale.

The only connection between the Virginia backcountry and Mumbai’s urbanity was specificity, as well as the urge to explore that drives Stephens. He said, “The buildings (in Virginia) have their own character, the landscape has its specific character. Bombay, when I first came, had that also. Its own specific character. It was by and large a low-scale city in 2007. I walked to Fort from Tardeo through the bazaar district, there was a certain scale. I could feel the culture of the place that has existed and evolved over three-four hundred years.”

With this perspective, the long-time Mumbaiite sees the city changing. He says, “Today, I miss that cultural specificity. It is getting replaced by a more and more generic culture. Whereas at the bungalows in Bandra, the compound walls are just jaalis, you feel a sense of community, camaraderie, there’s a sense of scale being created. I would say that’s the greatest value, being aware of others… Like in Bandra, the new developments you are seeing, a huge tower comes, a compound wall comes, that’s it. There is no engagement between outside and inside… That’s something that’s kind of scary for me, it’s disappointing. I think it’s going to be really hard to correct, if it can be corrected.”

A chance to impact Mumbai’s sense of scale came Stephens’s way. The year after his initial, epiphanic visit, he was requesting a renowned architect in Mumbai, Rahul Mehrotra, founder principal of RMA Architects, to give him a job. Says Stephens, “I told my boss Rahul, I’m going to work for you. I was so confident that this was the place I wanted to work. He asked me, ‘Have you been to Bombay’, and I said, ‘Yes’. He, in a very nice way, said, ‘You’re crazy. Let’s try it out for six months.’” Stephens joined as an apprentice (intern), and began living as a paying guest, initially, at Tardeo in South Mumbai. Remembering his stay there, he brings to mind the insight that “no one in Bombay has great infrastructure”. But the place was close to work, and gave him time for his great love, exploration.

He works in the same firm today. He is now a principal (one of the top managerial posts). His weekends are spent being a dad and family man, and happily so. Earlier, on weekends he’d walk from Tardeo to Fort, letting the city plant its hooks in him. He’d talk to people on the street. He had some serendipitous discoveries, he said, such as finding possibly the last artist in Mumbai who hand-painted movie posters — at Alfred Talkies, Kamathipura. The artist, whom he calls Rehman bhai, was commissioned to make two posters for him. Sometimes Stephens even ventured outside Mumbai via local trains, and walked there.

The thirst for discovery, which resulted in this book, didn’t stop there. Working at RMA, Stephens had to travel across the country and abroad for ongoing projects. He knew aircraft routes were predictable, and would note what city was below him, and would photograph it with his pocket camera, which he still has. These aerial photos, shot through a plane window, indirectly led to the book. The photos, which he began posting on his Facebook, were ‘liked’ by many, and also happened to draw the attention of Radhi Parekh, founder of Artisans, a gallery in the happening art district, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai.

She invited him to exhibit his photos at her gallery. What ensued was ‘ Mumbai Articles ’ in 2014, which showed 24 of his aerial photos of Mumbai paired up with “obscure fragments” of the city’s history gleaned from old books. For example, an aerial photo of Bandra-Worli Sea Link was coupled with a few lines of text from the 1930s, talking about bad traffic conditions seen at the time. A later exhibition was called ‘Mumbai North’, black and white aerial photos of Mumbai’s suburbs from Bandra onwards to cities such as Vasai. Other exhibitions followed, photos paired with archival text, as Stephens was often flying, and photographing avidly from his window seat. In 2016, he formally named his practice ‘Urbs Indis’, a civic history archive focused on visual and text narratives. Across the years, Stephens has exhibited his work across India — Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad — and in Edinburgh, Scotland.

His latest work is the book. He had the idea for it after coming across Arthur Crawford’s (Mumbai’s first municipal commissioner and collector) idea of having a 400-acre park at Mahalaxmi; he’d found the reference in a book Professional Papers on Indian Engineering (1869) at a bookseller in London in 2014, and he used that reference to find, back in Mumbai, (as per Stephens’s interview with Jane Borges for Mid Day) Crawford’s book The Development of New Bombay, which had more detail.

The idea made him curious to find what other schemes had gone unrealised. He began researching, even wrote a bit, but, he says, something was missing. He put away the manuscript and research in a cupboard. It was only in the lockdown that he found the time and spark to resume it. Sticking to his idea of combining text with visuals, he commissioned 3D artist Aniket Umaria to make visuals of the projects had they been realized (speculation art). Deshna Mehta and Carol Nair of Studio Anugraha designed the book, and Fauwaz Khan managed the project. They coordinated over Zoom.

This month the book was released — 1,500 self-published copies, available from the Urbs Indis website. His wife Tina is handling communications and promotions for the book. The book represents a big chunk of Stephens’s personal funds; and even if the whole print run goes, he won’t recover all his money, he says. He has priced the book reasonably, so that many people can participate in the conversation about how their city has developed and how it could. The explorer wants to share his findings with as large a community as he can.

Over our conversation, Stephens says that he doesn’t go walking around the city any more, because he is focusing on “being a good dad”, and happily at that. His son, Kairav, and he are already quibbling jokingly about who gets to sit at the window when they fly. He hopes one day his son will also want to walk with him down some Mumbai street. Perhaps Stephens has still got stories to tell about the city he has made home. Perhaps he wants to share his love for exploration with his son. Or both.

Suhit Kelkar is a Mumbai-based writer whose journalism, poetry and short fiction appear in India and abroad. 

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