New Grass: Watering the cricket pitch at Navi Mumbai Sports Association grounds. The grass has early morning dew.
Just east of Sanpada Railway Station, the Harbour Line and the Trans Harbour Line meet perpendicularly, forming a triangle largely untouched by direct human activity. It retains a small piece of what would have been the original landscape of the place - grass and wetlands. It’s also just above the high tide line.
OLD GRASS
Old Grass: The triangular piece of land during winter. It’s been a few months since the monsoon rains ended, and they have dried. Fires will reduce them to ashes in some days.
Old grass: On the edge of the mangroves in Sarsole village, Navi Mumbai.
Most of what is now Navi Mumbai would have been grasslands, rice fields, and pasture lands for the local villages that were a mix of agricultural, salt pans possibly, and fishing villages that still survive because they depend on the sea.Â
A rice field belonging to a villager of a fishing village that resists the city. It’s within the village land of Vashi and hence safe for now.
Another field that stands out in Kopri gaon is an agricultural village.
Grass and fishing nets in a village of Navi Mumbai.
Wall art on the city walls featuring paddy fields.
On the other side of the Thane Creek, in Mumbai, children play in an old and abandoned salt pan set amidst mangroves and grass.
Art depicting salt pan workers in Navi Mumbai where no salt pans currently exists.
NEW GRASS
As Mumbai expanded and gobbled up this land, they gave way to roads, buildings, and a few parks and playgrounds with trees that city and horticulturists love.
These photographs and drawings are amazing! Recently, I was visiting my village in Goa and we were hearing from older family members about what the landscapes used to be like....it is so important to remember...maybe the memories will help us save the nature that we can!
These photographs and drawings are amazing! Recently, I was visiting my village in Goa and we were hearing from older family members about what the landscapes used to be like....it is so important to remember...maybe the memories will help us save the nature that we can!