Dwelling In (On) Bombay Cinema

Part A: An Extended Prologue
3. The term “dwell”
has been defined by
Heidegger in ‘Building
Dwelling Thinking’
(2009, p. 145) and
referred to in the
‘Theoretical Framework’
chapter of this
document.
The object of concern in this study is not the entire city, rather it
focusses on the domestic scale. The house, although emphatically
varying in typology both in cinema, is often the primary seat
of the character’s urban adventures. The characters are found to
scale the urban arena in an attempt to combat the sociocultural
dynamics found both within the city and the film, only to return
home repeatedly as a necessary means of recovery. Curiously, to
actually find a house in the city is a demanding process that films
generally assume for granted. It is well known that housing in
developing cities like Bombay is a multifarious social issue. Bombay
experiences wide disparities in housing conditions between
the affluent and the lower-middle income groups living in the city.
Despite a vibrant economic growth in the city since independence
(“GDP growth (annual %) | Data,” 2019), housing conditions have
not improved proportionately in postcolonial Bombay (Appadurai,
2000, p. 629). With comfortable living conditions accessible
at a premium and the working class often residing in cramped
and poor-quality spaces, the poor inevitably take to the footpaths.
Notwithstanding this crippling housing crisis, Bombay continues
to attract migrants in search of new opportunities (“2018 Revision
of World Urbanization Prospects,” 2018), causing further
demands in housing, thereby contributing to a cycle that becomes
increasingly difficult to disrupt.
To dwell 3 “in” Bombay is to confront this reality of urban claustrophobia.
It is to innocently step into the city, attempting to search
for order from within the chaotic, oily machine that is Bombay.
To dwell “on” Bombay is to reflect on its cinema. It is to confront
an alternate reality and therefore to dive into the depths of one
the largest resources available to use for social introspection in
the city.
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