A play shows how textile workers of Mumbai were written out of the history and mythology of the city

Cotton 56, Polyester 84 holds the key to a city lost to time, hubris, and market forces. In these pages, you will travel in time to the early 1990s and walk the bylanes of Girangaon, through Parel, Byculla, Chinchpokli, Lalbaug. There you enter the world of the girni kamgar, where Mumbai’s cosmopolitan character and rich culture were forged, until the city they built turned on them.

Somewhere amidst the mills and chawls is a vachnalaya, a communal reading space, where you will meet Bhau Saheb and Kaka, who are mill workers and best friends. Their story is the story of lakhs of kamgars who were exploited by mill owners, strung along by union leaders, betrayed by politics and law, and ultimately cast aside. Death came close on the heels of despair, often by suicide or starvation. Lives were lost; so was a way of life. As Bhau Saheb put it, “My dear chap, there’s something called the freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves in them. Once upon a time, it was possible. Today, it is the most neglected of our rights.”

By and by, insidiously, the textile workers of Mumbai were written out of the history and mythology of the city.

Playwright Ramu Ramanathan...

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