Chawls
The area in which the workers and their families settled, were close to the mills. Together they came to be known as Girangaon, the Village of the Mills.
Due to housing demands from the milk workers, the Bombay Development District (BDD) and Bombay Improvement Trust (BIT) built rows of low cost houses in Girangaon. These 1-2 stories high, single room tenements with a common narrow corridor, and a block of shared toilets situated at the end of the corridor came to be known as “Chawls”.
A group of 3 to 4 Chawl buildings were usually built around a central courtyard which served as an open space for sports, family celebrations, weddings and festivals. This congested tenement living created a “Chawl Culture” based upon a unique, shared lifestyle and collective identity. Today it is being replaced by the “Mall Culture”
The area in which the workers and their families settled, were close to the mills. Together they came to be known as Girangaon, the Village of the Mills.
Due to housing demands from the milk workers, the Bombay Development District (BDD) and Bombay Improvement Trust (BIT) built rows of low cost houses in Girangaon. These 1-2 stories high, single room tenements with a common narrow corridor, and a block of shared toilets situated at the end of the corridor came to be known as “Chawls”.
A group of 3 to 4 Chawl buildings were usually built around a central courtyard which served as an open space for sports, family celebrations, weddings and festivals. This congested tenement living created a “Chawl Culture” based upon a unique, shared lifestyle and collective identity. Today it is being replaced by the “Mall Culture”
No comments:
Post a Comment