Poisar River,
Mumbai, Maharashtra

Poisar River, one of the many rivers in Mumbai, was once a celebrated landscape but has now become a dumping ground and a backyard of the city. Poisar River can be traced back to prehistoric times, when these were nerve centers from where the city began to grow. These  villages were gradually transformed by the engineered infrastructures of the British. In the vicinity of the Poisar River, Film City, Mahindra Factory, and the Charkop Industrial Area came up post independence which turned their backs to the water. The field study looked at the Poisar river from its source on the western slopes of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, to the point where it merged with the Arabian Sea through Malad Creek. The investigation into physical, social, economic and historical factors led to an understanding of the relationship of the adjacent communities with the river, the history of occupation and inhabitation. The study also traced the river’s previous geography (based on old maps). It further went on to speculate the possibility of the river and its adjacent communities being seen as part of a unified ecological structure rather than a mere ‘waste dump’.