The new horse statue in Kala Ghoda embodies Mumbai's efforts to create a false memory

Not so long ago, the second-most recognisable (and photographed) building in India – the Bombay Stock Exchange – was foisted with a large neon sign proclaiming what the building was: the Bombay Stock Exchange. This tautology is a couple of floors high and crowns a skyscraper that, since the ’70s, needed no introduction. This piece of neon irrelevance marks the city’s new Literalism that culminated earlier this month with its piece de resistance, a riderless horse in the Kala Ghoda parking lot. Spellcheck has just informed me that the word I may be looking for is rudderless, but I am forcing myself to ignore this.

This city that we grew up in was always comfortable with allusion and connotation, which added richness to our lives that gave us lore we could uniquely call our own. Churchgate did not have to be spelt out with a gate, nor Bori Bunder with bales of cotton. Many do know and many do not that the masjid that gives the name to the Masjid Bunder railway station refers to a synagogue. And of course, everyone knows the part of the city that we call Kala Ghoda. What have we come to, if we have to stick a horse in the middle of a place to say it has “horse” in its name?

Unlike the Shivaji statue due to come up off the harbour, this denotative equine was not part of any political agenda, nor the result of popular desire from the citizens of Mumbai, so what does its presence imply?

Runaway rider

The Kala Ghoda precinct in South Mumbai was in fact named after a statue, but that was equestrian, depicting the then Prince of Wales and later king Edward VII riding a stately horse. This was one among the several acts of public philanthropy and urban statuary by the Sassoon Family, in particular by Albert Sassoon. The David Sassoon Library, another testament to the family’s munificence, is just across the road from where this statue originally stood, framing three avenues – the DN Road, the MG Road and Rampart Row.

This statue on a pedestal followed a long lineage of equestrian statues that depicted the power and prestige of its rider, starting with Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

But now, its ghost has returned, sans uncle Edward, to hover over the parking lot, like Ichabod Crane’s nemesis, but without the entire body. The ghudswaar, so to speak, is faraar. The rider is absconding. The installation is titled “The Spirit of Kala Ghoda”. What does this valorisation of a lone odd-toed, ungulate mammal of genus/species equus ferus callabus tell us about ourselves?

It points to our insatiable desire to add to urban clutter, rather than streamline objects in the public realm. The statue shares space with poorly placed signage, booths without purpose, encroached pavements, trees with chrome guards, a street half-painted maroon (with pretensions of pedestrianisation) and cars. And more cars. Most of those who work in this area would probably concur that the statue equals five parking spaces lost, which means more triple parking on Rampart Row.

In the post-planning phase that Mumbai is in, additions and accretions have become the new norm, often without a well-thought-out purpose or location. The hapless horse is now installed in a position different from the original Kala Ghoda. Its original focus along the DN Road has gone and now it punctuates the Rampart Row along its axis.

But what a presence! As you turn into the street from the Yellow Gate, you are confronted with an upraised tail and (how else shall one put this) a horse’s arse. As you get closer, its vantage on a pedestal gives everyone a worm’s eye view that leaves you in no doubt that the horse is, um, a boy. The new location of the statue is lazy urban design and points more to an agenda for its presence than its necessity.

Making up memories

In our age of neo-Literalism, any work of art has to be labeled “A WORK OF ART” and cordoned off with chains and bollards. This has been duly carried out here. One may even foresee the presence of private security appointed solely to prevent anyone getting close to the statue and dissuade the over-enthusiastic from taking selfies. The fact that a riderless horse is begging to be mounted is of course a no-no.

The cordoning of public art has always had the end effect of the art receding from public gaze into the larger bric-a-brac of the urban realm. Look at the Charkha in Cross Maidan, or the hapless painted bulls and lions outside Churchgate station. This cordoning off also points to the state’s inherent distrust of the public at large.

Unforgivably, this is the creation of a false memory. Unlike other cities in our country, comfortable with the presence of the colonial past, Mumbai seems particularly phobic of any signs of it. The equestrian Edward was evicted from this location and relocated in the grounds of the city’s Byculla zoo during the great purge of colonial memorabilia in the mid 1960s. The statue disappeared but the name, in all its semiotic glory, remained steadfast.

One could make a case for the rehabilitation of the original statue itself in an act of urban conservation, but we do not have the collective gumption to do so. So in its place, we have a Horse with No Name. Such false memories erase the history of the city (as do renaming places) only to produce spurious narratives for the future.

One can conclude, in the final assessment, this is not about the horse, but the pedestal. The ultimate claim that can be made to this piece of territorial appropriation is its marked presence of authorship. It is the plaques on three sides of the pedestal that will remain once the newness of this project has been forgotten. This is the stamp, the final label, the literal declaration of the Kala Ghoda as an art district. This is forced iconography for brochures and logos, for future tourist maps.

It would be worthwhile to remember that the one permanent presence on the moon of human visitation is a plaque that will remain, when we are all long gone, bearing the signature of its patron – Richard Milhous Nixon.