The monsoons of Mumbai never let us entirely forget that water can simultaneously exist in multiple states. As it rains, water held in the ...
The monsoons of Mumbai never let us entirely forget that water can simultaneously exist in multiple states. As it rains, water held in the sea, land, atmosphere and vegetation swells and claims the city in all its forms. Moss covers surfaces, electronics emit excess current as moisture penetrates the earthing, doors distend, resisting their frames, chips lose their crunch, the smell of petrichor fills the lungs even as the winds and clouds clear our polluted skies.
Yet what gets spoken of the most is the visible water, pouring out of nullahs, overflowing from dams and making potholes and flooding streets and homes.
When speaking of cities, we have been trained by maps and satellite imagery, to notice only this visible water, even though it is only one threshold or moment in the hydrological cycle. The maps on which city planning, urban design, property law, public and environment policy operate, are snapshots, stills of a dynamic movement of tidal and atmospheric water.
The ubiquitous nature of these maps, which are drawn in the driest moments of the year, directs us to imagine water only in its visible, liquid form contained in its cartographic limits.
In attempts to define the precise position of water, we have lost all tangible measure...
