The Thousands of Wells of Mumbai Serve its People, Birds and Animals
Mustansir Dalvi
“Like a poem,
she wanted to live
with water, near the well,
and, if she could have mustered the courage,
directly in the water, at the bottom of the well.”
Hemant Divate’s searing Marathi poem, “Nadi Gheun Aaloy Sobat” (“I’ve brought a river with me”) is about his mother’s obsession with water in her village. She cannot sit still until all the vessels at home are filled. The well is central to her existence, like so many in our country whose day begins with the physical act of storing water.
Water sources have also obsessed city-dwellers. In the early days of Mumbai’s migrant experience , sites of fresh water would have proliferated with settlements. From the early 18th century, the fort/port city had, as significant landmarks, several ‘tanks’ or reservoirs, supplied by underground springs.
Wells would be dug manually. The search for fresh water, potable water, was all the more urgent in a peninsular city, surrounded on three sides by open seas. In the city’s urban villages, in wadis and chawls, wells would provide for families residing there. The social experience surrounding village wells would continue around city wells, cementing ties amongst neighbours in a city far away from the home town. The Diwan Bawadi at Chembur Gaothan is one notable example of such a well. “Water, husband, children and water-filled vessels, / these made up her household, and her world.” So continues Divate’s poem about his mother, who comes to the city only on the condition that she should live where water freely flows.
The earliest known example of a well in Mumbai is, of course, the Bhikha Behram No Kuvo, the subject of this volume. This well, opened for use in 1725 on the western sea-edge of the city, has had a stellar history and still functions as a sacred site for Zoroastrians. Now ensconced by the Backbay Reclamation, it remains a small, but delightful, urban landmark for commuters walking from Churchgate to Flora Fountain and the original business district of Ballard Estate.

Photo: Sooni Taraporewala.
The second is the 220-year-old underground well, now in the Horniman Circle Garden, capped by a fountain built in 1842 by Seth Gangadas Vijbhukhandas Shroff. For the 19th-century city, this well was essential. It was located in the erstwhile Bombay Green, where opium and cotton were stored and despatched from, with the Town Hall on one side and the stock exchange on the other. The well, maintained by generational Bhatt water-bearers, still supplies the few surviving bhistis (water carriers) in the city.
Wells were sunk all over the city although few survive today. Not far from the Bhikha Behram Well is one in the campus of the Bombay High Court. It is now defunct like most which have been filled, capped and several built over. Some are invisible suppliers to the city’s reservoirs, the Banganga tank, for example.
Sources of water in western India have direct connections with sacred places. Mumbai is no exception. Water is obligatory for rituals to Mumbaikars of all religions. In Zoroastrian sacred practices, pure water is de rigueur. All mosques have water sources for ritual ablutions or wazu. Even the iconic Jama Masjid is built over a tank supplied by fresh water springs. For East Indian Christian weddings, the presence of a well is necessary to complete the Umbracha Paani ceremony. Temples in the city, Mumbadevi, Mahalakshmi and Babulnath, et al, have water sources associated with them as do the important dargahs of Makhdoom Ali Mahimi and Haji Ali. Some of these waters are also revered for their miraculous or curative powers.
In the 19th century, wells and tanks would also be commissioned by wealthier citizens, such as Jamshedjee Jejeebhoy and Framji Cowasji Bana, for the public good during times of water scarcity. These tanks were often replenished by sinking new wells to harness the aquifers beneath them. Mumbai is unique in the formation of ‘water charities’ as philanthropic endeavours. Bana established the Powai Estate and Water Trust. Sir Dinshaw Petit and Cowasjee Patel (after whom C. P. Tank is named) set up or contributed to such charities. Their efforts laid the ground for Bombay’s water supply infrastructure.

Photo: Bachi Karkaria.
Later, as the colonial government developed water supply systems to pump in water to South Bombay from the northern lakes, several pyaus (drinking water fountains) were built (often with elaborate sculptural markers) that provided hydration to humans, animals (and birds) alike. These were erected in the form of public-private partnerships (with Parsi, Gujarati, Agri or Koli communities, among others, contributing)) Many of these still exist as landmarks in the city, like the Horniman Circle Pyau, the Mulji Jetha Fountain at Fort or the Kothari Pyau at Kabutarkhana in front of the General Post Office.
Whereas pyaus have had distinct structures of architectural merit and are deemed worthy of conservation, wells, their more ordinary counterparts have no such specifics, and are prone to being built over and lost. With technological advances, manual digging has been replaced by bore wells. Traditional water sources have further lost their social and ritual presence as ground water recedes. Water began as a place of socialising, of ritual, then of philanthropy. Now it is a mere commodity for consumption. The well is now a tap.
There are as many as 19,000 functioning wells across Mumbai, of which over 12,500 are borewells. Since these are replenished by groundwater from the city’s ample monsoon, they do not adversely affect the water table. Our Bhikha Behram no Kuvo is, of course, an open well.
This is an extract is from Waternamah: 300 Years of Mumbai’s Bhikha Behram Well, edited by Bachi Karkaria, with Sooni Taraporevala’s emotive photographs plus watercolour illustrations. This collection of 32 essays commemorates not just an historic tricentenary, but the sanctified place of water in all belief systems. And of course, its secular role as the planet’s life-force.
The iconic Bhikha Behram Well is 300-year witness to Bombay’s manifest destinies. It was dug by the eponymous merchant in 1725 on the orders of a Voice that came to him in a dream.
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