Mumbai: Heritage and cultural walks in Mumbai are a dime a dozen. But documentary filmmaker Akanksha Gupta adds another layer to the city’s storied life— through water.
It begins at Malabar Hill, home to a British-era artificial reservoir that was built in 1887 under Hanging Gardens to supply piped water to the island city.
For three hours on a Sunday morning, Gupta led a group of seven people on a 3-hour, 6-kilometre journey through Dhobi Talao and Banganga tank. She charges Rs 1,000 for a walk and conducts it once a month. It’s an exploration of Mumbai’s ties with water—historical, economic, cultural and political.
“In a city, we look at a land-oriented economy and never at water. Every city needs blue spaces just as much as green spaces. Blue spaces are not only the elixir of life but also create a sense of community and belonging within the people,” said Gupta, standing on the ghats of Banganga—a 12th-century step-water tank. Some of these blue spaces, like the Malabar Hill Reservoir, Framjee Cowasjee Tank in Dhobi Talao, and Joseph Baptista Garden Reservoir at Mazgaon, supplied water to the entire city.
The idea for the walk came to Gupta while working on her documentary, The Chaviwallahs of Mumbai, which delves into water politics in the city. The chavi (key) wallahs are the men who control the water valves and hold power to dictate water flow to different neighbourhoods. Like her documentary, the walk is an extension of Gupta’s fascination with the intersection of heritage and civic utility.
“Cities are one of mankind’s greatest geniuses and one of its biggest follies. Access to water is shaped by ‘who’ surrounds us and the inherent class conflict within our society,” she said on the walk.
Mumbai’s march for water
As Mumbai developed into a port city, Parsi and Gujarati business families and philanthropists like Cowasjee Patel funded many of these tanks in colonial Bombay. Of the 66 British-era water tanks across the suburbs and the city of Mumbai, only 53 are traceable.
The British saw Bombay as a strategic location for port development due to its natural harbour. But as the city’s population and trade grew exponentially, water shortages became common. This affected port trade as large ships required fresh water for cleaning. To avoid moving along the coast of Elephanta Caves for business, the British brought about Mumbai’s first water project, known as the Vihar Waterworks Project.
Today, Mumbai gets its water from Vaitarna, Tulsi, Bhatsa, Tansa, and Modak Sagar lakes, spread across Thane and Nashik districts.
During the walk, participants also shared anecdotes about difficulty accessing water in times of shortage.
“Back in 2023, there was a water shortage in Kopar Khairane and Vashi, and there was no drinking water even in stores, and trucks were selling water at highly inflated prices,” said Kapithra Kannapiran, a Navi Mumbai-based environmental educator and founder of the nature collective, Owe Earth.
Gupta used this segue to talk about conservation policies. After all, Mumbai’s relationship with water is tense. During the monsoon, everyone monitors the water levels at reservoirs. Families plan contingency plans if cuts are announced.
“Methods like rainwater harvesting are preferred for conservation at the policy level, but the question to ask is how well these policies are being implemented on the ground,” she said.
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The politics of water
At Hanging Gardens, Gupta recalled the protests of 2016 when women from Shahapur, a town in Thane district that supplies water to Mumbai, walked to the Mantralaya to demand adequate water for themselves. Near Kamla Nehru Park in Byculla, she stopped and urged her guests to listen to the deep thrum of water motors from the government-operated high–security zone.
While showing participants the jumbled pipelines running through small lanes of the Dhobi Talao, Gupta explained how a man from an informal settlement told her that every five years, before elections, the authorities would lay pipes with promises of running water.
“People in informal settlements pay more for water, as they don’t own formal housing with a steady supply, forcing them to source water from elsewhere,” Gupta said.
“There are instances where the Chaviwallahs, who control the water flow, are paid by the local mafia to not open the water valves in certain areas,” she added.
Once, while researching for one of her documentaries, Gupta met a young boy who had never seen full-time water in his household. She elaborated on how he chose to take things into his own hands and supply water in all households of his locality.
The boy paid off the local police and plumbers, and drew a pipeline that would bring water to his basti. In the basti, he would provide water to one lane at a time as there wasn’t enough for everyone at one go.
“The day I supply water to all households, I feel like the festival of Eid has arrived for everyone.”
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)