Cultivating Culture in the lost Portuguese Village in Mumbai, India

Research Article Cultivating Culture in the lost Portuguese Village in Mumbai, India Sneha Kishnadwala Kamala Raheja Vidhyanidhi Institute of Architecture and Environment Studies, Visiting Faculty of Masters in Urban Conservation, Mumbai, India https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2691-7779 Received: 04.03.2021 Accepted: 05.06.2021 DOI: 10.17932/IAU.ARCH.2015.017/arch_v07i1005 Abstract: Culture connects everyone either actively or passively. It has evolved through generations and the millennials are contradicting the ways of the old times. This new generation has begun to lose their sense of belonging to their community and place. The concept of ‘cultivating culture’ talks about both ends of culture, i.e. the past and present. The same will be understood with a case study of Ranwar village, Bandra in a suburb of Mumbai. With time the culture of this village cultivated that is it was close-knit communities since generations, even today seen today through local community participation, take place in the village square for events. This paper explores how with time the sense of belonging within the community changed. Once where there were Portuguese cottages, are being destroyed today to build skyscrapers is one of the many issues faced by this community. Overall, this case study will help in understanding how the community cultivated their culture in order to protect their ‘Portuguese’ identity. Keywords: Cultivating culture, Portuguese, place attachment, community spaces, adapting Kültür Geliştirme, Hindistan Mumbai’deki Kayıp Portekiz Köyü Örneği Öz: Kültür, herkesi aktif veya pasif olarak birbirine bağlar. Nesiller boyunca gelişir ve eski zamanların yöntemleriyle çelişebilir. Yeni nesil, topluma ve bulunduğu yere aidiyet duygusunu yitirmeye başlamıştır. "Kültür geliştirme" kavramı, kültürün geçmişini ve bugününü içerir. Bu çalışmada kültür geliştirme çalışma alanı konusu olarak seçilen, Mumbai'nin bir banliyösündeki Bandra, Ranwar köyü örneği üzerinden anlaşılmaya çalışılacaktır. Zamanla gelişen köy kültürü geçmişteki bağlarını kaybetmemiştir. Yerel halkın katılımlarını içeren köy meydanı etkinlikleri bu konuda önemli bir örnektir. Bu makale, topluluk içindeki aidiyet duygusunun zamanla nasıl değiştiğini araştırıyor. Bir zamanlar Portekiz kulübelerinin bulunduğu yerde, bugün gökdelenlerin inşa edilmesi bu topluluğun karşılaştığı birçok sorundan biridir. Genel olarak, bu vaka çalışması, topluluğun 'Portekizli' kimliğini korumak için kültürünü nasıl geliştirdiğini anlamaya yardımcı olmaya yöneliktir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Kültür geliştirme, Portekiz, topluluk hissi, topluluk mekânları, çevreye uyum 1. INTRODUCTION Culture is one of the most common terms used to describe one’s being. It can be a lifestyle, food, festival or even a dressing style. According to the Oxford University, culture is the “way of life of people, their attitudes, values, beliefs, arts and the knowledge they have gained in the processes” [1]. When it comes to historians or conservators to explain this term, they often began romanticizing with the past and would be unhappy with the “culture” of the current generation. But it cannot be ignored that culture is a process, and in new times, culture will also evolve. Hence, a tiff is always seeing in whether one should adopt to the new ways or hold on to what was been practiced by our ancestors. The Bhagvad Gita, which A+ArchDesign - Year: 7 Number: 1 - Yıl: 7 Sayı: 1 - 2021 (85 - 97) 85 Cultivating Culture in the lost Portuguese Village in Mumbai, India is considered to be as holy as The Bible or The Quran for Hindus, also mentions that “Change is the law of the universe”. It explains that this world, whether its living or non-living will change fast but the only thing that will remain intact is the “process of change”, hence one should accept and embrace this change. With time the lifestyle and environment changes, resulting in evolution of towns and cities. But with this evolving time, it is also important to know about our ancestral roots and how to hold them along with embracing the changing times. The case study taken into consideration for this paper will explore how an urban village is successful to sustain its ancestral culture along with the changing times. The Ranwar Village, an urban village, has its roots from the seventeenth century and even today it holds a historic touch in spite of being located within the hustle-bustle of one of the most populated cities in the world, Mumbai. In this village, even today there are many houses which have with Portuguese origin and the bungalows are built in the colonial-style. Each of these houses would be more than a hundred years old and has an undying culture attached to it. And with time the culture of this village is being cultivated, where the younger generations are taking steps to help their close-knit community to survive. 2. BACKGROUND OF RANWAR VILLAGE, BANDRA, MUMBAI, INDIA 2.1. Location The Ranwar Village is a part of suburb, Bandra on the western side of Mumbai. 2.2. Portuguese Influence On The Islands Until the twelfth century the islands did not exist on any political maps of the native kingdoms or on other invading foreign armies. These islands were nothing but archipelagos of seven quaint islands off the Western coast of India. It was in the fifteenth century when Vasco De Gama first reached the Southern tip of the subcontinent and slowly by the sixteenth century the Portuguese acquired several territories and began constructing churches and forts. According to the Bombay Gazetteer volume III, it was in 1534, when the Portuguese signed a treaty with the Sultanate of Gujarat, which allowed them to build fort on the island. Since, the territory of Bombay did not have any claim of governance; and this gave the Portuguese to establish their colonial “presence” in Bombay. They called this place as the “Bom Bahia”, in Portuguese which meant “'the good bay”. These islands were surrounded by shallow sea, which restricted the land use to rice and coconut cultivation. Although the major landmass was the territory of the Portuguese but it also had a small number of settlements, inhabited by the native fishermen or Koli community and a small Hindu population. These Koli communities were the oldest residents, with a possibility that some of the sites may have been in existence in since the Iron Age, as mentioned in the Gazetteer. The Gazetteer also mentions that the landscape of these islands was not changed since the thirteenth century including the social, cultural, or economic patterns of the locals. The primary intention of the Portuguese rule was the spread of Christianity, and economic activity was a secondary objective. This could be seen in the pre-British landscape where there were no major city building efforts or any civic building of importance [7]. 2.3. East India Company And Its Impact On Bandra The crucial times between British and Portuguese began from the 1660s. On one hand, the Britis (...truncated)