I live in a building which faces the sea – the Arabian Sea. It has been so for the past 37 years. But there is a big gap between seeing the sea, and walking close to it. Mumbai doesn’t have too many places where one can actually enjoy the closeness of the sea. As a result, over time, the sea has become like a painting on the wall that I have stopped noticing. Which is a sad thing.
Mumbai could have done so much with the sea. But other than building on and around it, we have not really made it part of our lives some other cities like Hong Kong have. For one, we could have built nice promenades like Shanghai has done. But in Mumbai, the sea remains quite distant – an optical artefact.
I hope that changes in the times to come. Mumbai’s history is closely tied to the sea, and it would be good to have the sea interwine our future.
