Swara Bhasker on the things she finds charming about Mumbai city
Tanvi Trivedi (BOMBAY TIMES; June 21, 2018)

Delhi girl, Swara Bhasker considers Mumbai her home now. Wracked by home-sickness initially, the uber talented actress has grown to understand that there is no other city like Mumbai in the last decade.

Recalling her initial days of flirting with the city, Swara says that she loved walking around the city. She says, “I loved walking around the GPO Fort area in SoBo (South Mumbai). I also participated in community processions on religious occasions like the visarjan. It is a beautiful to be part of the visarjan journey during Ganesh festival and experience the spirit of Mumbai around that time.”

The actress also enjoys a ride in the local trains of Mumbai, when she has friends visiting from abroad. She says, “The local train reminds me of my early days of struggle here. And I also believe that every tourist should experience a ride in local trains to understand what the city is all about. My friends, who come to visit me from abroad, have enjoyed the experience too.”

Swara finds the cafes in the city to be extremely vibrant and young in spirit. “There are beautiful themed cafes, where you find youngsters having a good time or engrossed in different kinds of work. Some of the cafés near my house have pets and books. I also enjoy strolling on the Versova beach as it reminds me of my early days, when I would go for an early morning walk with friends on the beach, after fooling around all night at home. I also feel the Prithvi café at Juhu is one of the iconic places of Mumbai; it makes me feel like I am in Delhi,” says the actress, who’s known to speak fearlessly on issues.

Mumbai is every bit the city of dreams that it is famous for, she says. “When you think Mumbai, you think of hard work, professionalism and responsibility at work. Even the bais who come home to work are very professional, somehow I never found that in my home city. The city works hard, gives you an opportunity to work hard and help achieve your dreams. That’s why I feel Mumbai is the city of dreams.”

Upala KBR (DNA; June 6, 2017)

Actress-filmmaker Pooja Bhatt with lawyer Afroz Shah and thousands of volunteers have been responsible for cleaning 160,000 kgs (160 Tons) of garbage from Versova beach. Pooja recalls, “Afroz and I go back many years. Initially, he didn’t tell anybody that he was doing this. When I first went to Versova beach and I consider myself an optimist, it was a physical blow to me! I was like — what have we done to our surroundings?”

The big change
Pooja says, “I learned from Afroz that it’s too easy to blame others. We worked silently for the first 50 weeks but it was only when the Patron of the Oceans Lewis Pugh, British endurance swimmer and ocean advocate came to Mumbai to clean the beach that the city and everyone else woke up and said ‘A white man is cleaning our beach.’ Then Head of UN Environment Erik Soleheim came and put his might behind us. The PM Hon’ble Narendra Modi also acknowledged our journey and now after 87 weeks, it’s been a mad rush for everyone to jump into the fray and get a piece of the pie.

Thousand flamingos!
She continues, “Four days ago, Randeep Hooda, Afroz and I took a boat from Lokhandwala creek to Malad where the garbage was coming from and that was another horrifying sight to see. Right behind Lokhandwala is a huge creek which could have been a tourist site for fishing, picnic, boating etc as we could reclaim our public places but when you go down the creek it’s black, dirty water and from there a radius of 10 km Bollywood people stay. We tell lies and spin lies and shoot in pristine locations but don’t look at the filth right under our noses. We saw over a 1000 pink flamingos as we ferried across the creek and saw the upstream mangrove forest choked with plastic. It was heartbreaking to see the birds skimming for marine life and getting plastic instead.”

Be responsible
She feels that Mumbai needs to dispose waste responsibly. “We have become a nation of blamers — kyun hota hai? We don’t realise that we are part of the problem. As long our aangans and homes are clean we are fine. Each of us has to protect the environment. It is too easy to blame the BMC or government but why don’t we take responsibility ourselves? Let anyone come and take credit but eventually we have formed a community of people. I was not part of that before. People of all caste, religion and economic strata — bonding and working together, sharing each other’s thoughts is fantastic! We have one thought — we have taken so much from the world but now it is time to give back. We have a plastic landfill for segregation, but our eventual aim is to convert this into fuel. We have planted coconut trees across the beach.”

Next is Bandra
“I want to bring to Chimbai beach in Bandra (known to be the most polluted beach in Mumbai) the same change we have brought to Versova beach. I am a Bandra girl but have never been to Chimbai beach. I want to replicate that model for sure and we need to give the community a sense of belonging and ownership.”