Two team of enthusiasts are on their way to an uphill task, one is a thorough believer of culture and the other is transforming that tradition into a commercial event. Both symbolize the cruel, maximum, cosmopolitan spirit of the city. That’s what is captured in a 30-minute documentary that tries to explain how a tradition turned into a streetside cult festival, Dahi Handi.

Young director Varun Grover, 28, in his debut docu-film titled ‘Towers of Mumbai’ has chosen two mandals that celebrate Dahi Handi in its most popular forms, but in stark contrast to each other, reflecting as the film progresses on the socio-political changes the island city has been through in the past 75 years. “Janmashtami, which remains an elaborate temple celebration up north, is in Mumbai a high-spirited street celebration. I have chosen a group of old men who introduced the human pyramids to the streets of Girgaum and another completely commercial team, the ‘Lashkar-e-Shivba’ in Central Mumbai for whom the festival is a chance to compete in the contests to break roadside handis and bring in extra moolah,” says Grover.

However, with their contrasts, both groups have a common enemy, the rapidly rising Towers of Mumbai, the multi-storeys that have taken over the cityscape.

Naming the movie after this common link, Grover has interviewed a wide range of people who mourn their losses to this maximum city. It was the mill workers of Girgaum who initiated the culture of human pyramids some 75 years back, incidentally not far from the place where the sarvajanik (public) Ganesh Chaturthi festival was launched by freedom fighter and social reformer Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

... contd.