It was the post-Emergency era, so anti-authoritarian feelings ran high. The mood could be perceived in a host of areas. In the legal arena, where public interest litigation was handling issues such as the treatment of undertrials or at the high court where a former chief minister was being tried for corruption. Feminists in Mumbai like their peers in other cities were agitating against dowry deaths and pulling down obscene hoardings. Urban environmentalists were successfully demanding action against those flouting developmental rules in the city.

The city was being remade by two significant events: the plight of the textile industry and the Datta Samant-led textile strike; and slum demolitions which brought several young lawyers to the aid of the dispossessed.

Film directors were making startling politically relevant films and theatre directors, including a fiery Vijay Tendulkar, were producing thought-provoking, experimental work. The Asiatic was not only Mumbai’s biggest public library but also a meeting point for many including leftist intellectuals while places such as Coffee Centre, Wayside Inn and Samovar were informal addas for writers, artists and others. And all of the ferment was reported back to Mumbaikars by a lively city-based media that consisted of a variety of publications both in English and the vernacular: daily newspapers, financial papers, weekly tabloids, eveningers, Sunday papers and features magazines.

I recall this time not to point at a golden age when everything was wonderful but to recall a time when the city’s mainstream bristled with multiple issues, when debate and litigation were perceived as valid ways to settle differences, when imagination and compassion were evident among people who could afford to look away and when Mumbai was a city which mattered in the national context, not just as a source of entertainment and money but also as a centre of thought and deliberation.

... contd.