Ports and Digital Ports: The Narrative Construction and Social Imaginaries of the Island City of Mumbai

Abstract

A city is a physical structure in one sense. In another sense, it is an organic body, poetically and metaphysically portrayed as having a soul. Most urban formations around the world, especially island cities, have a clear anthology of narratives that mesh the physical and the metaphysical of a city-body. The island city of Mumbai possesses characteristic socioeconomic traits have been counter-intuitively shaped by narratives and social imaginaries that would not have emerged if not for coastal features and forms. This aspect has been insufficiently explored. This paper will bring three unexplored dimensions to the fore. The first is how this island city’s main ports, historically connected to West Asia and later to Europe, become the main entry points for material and non-material foundations of modern cultural production. The second is how these bases became the primary nodes for narratives that inform the city’s distinctive ethos and its inhabitants’ social imaginaries in such a way as to fundamentally differ from the pre- and postcolonial narratives of India. The third is how digital ports (global undersea Internet cables), initially connected to the city because of the calm waters of the Arabian Sea, have made the Internet a powerful and dominant mode of cultural production in Mumbai.