Over the last seven days, a Lahore-based British photographer Malcolm Hutcheson shot Mumbai’s toxic Mithi River. He shares his dark prognosis. When British photographer Malcolm Hutcheson was selected for Tasveer-e-Mumbai & Tasveer-e-Karachi project, he wanted to select a subject that “takes you to the heart of Mumbai”. The 49-year-old is one of the five photographers from Pakistan travelling to the city as part of the Observer Research Foundation Mumbai’s initiative. A Mumbai-Karachi Friendship Forum fellow, he chose Mumbai’s Mithi river as his muse. The subject of water is intriguing to Hutcheson and, in his words, “the rivers act as a diagnosis of a city.” In 2008, he shot his acclaimed series, Ganda Nallah. “Pakistan suffers from an increase in demand for water and a reduced capacity to supply it. Compounding this are two additional problems: an inept government and a population that is ignorant of the dangers of pollution,” he writes on his website. “The result is a poorly maintained and antiquated sewage system, and 90 per cent of Lahore’s sewage, and domestic and industrial waste being poured untreated into the local aquatic ecosystem. These photographs show the historic architecture of water and the people who have to work within the water economy.” A similar problem plagues Mumbai. It has been reported that in July 2015, Maharashtra Environment Minister Ramdas Kadam declared that the stream consisted of 93 per cent domestic sewage and seven per cent industrial waste. Travelling a total length of about 18 km, the river is a natural drainage channel that carries excess water during the monsoon. Mithi originates from the overflow of Vihar lake and receives the overflows from the Powai Lake before it terminates in the Arabian Sea at Mahim Creek. Flowing through residential and industrial complexes of Powai, Saki Naka, Kurla, Kalina, Vakola, Bandra-Kurla Complex, Dharavi and Mahim, the river was one of the primary reasons for the 26/7 deluge in 2005, cited as a “climate change” event internationally. “I must have heard of it at the time it happened, but I didn’t recall it. And I wondered what the city did to stop that happening again. It seems that if the Mithi River was clean, Mumbai would have had a revolution in social affairs,” he says. Not one keen to take pretty photographs, to Hutcheson, “the problems are very obvious.” “You have a huge area of deregulated housing around the Mithi River. Nearly 33 per cent of the population’s sewage is going into the river and that’s happening because all around the area, the housing is not formally constructed,” he explains. Though plastic, garbage and sewage in the river wasn’t startling, “what was shocking was the number of rats I saw,” he says. “But what was more striking was a 10-foot nullah alongside the front door of some of the houses, which otherwise was neat and tidy.” His reading also suggested: “The Mahim estuary, which separated Mumbai from Salsette Island, has witnessed many battles between the natives and foreign forces (Portuguese and British). Four important forts were built around the Mahim estuary, which divided the islands of Mumbai and Salsette. The forts were built and occupied by different rulers over time.” “I was also surprised to see how the fishermen spend so much of their time cleaning the nets after fishing. It’s filled with plastic and waste. The fish must be toxic,” he adds. “The contrast of the river meeting near the Mahim causeway wasn’t any different from my impression of the rest of the world India is depressingly a capitalist-driven society.”
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