There are as many ways to archive the contemporary of a city as there are by-lanes and labyrinths. Majlis tried taking a few not-so-familiar routes towards archiving Bombay / Mumbai (and occasionally, a few other urban centres too).

Arrivals and Departures / Cemeteries, 2004: Documentation of five cemeteries providing for the lesser known minority communities - Baghdadi Jews, Baha’i sect, Chinese community, Japanese community and Christian faith. The documentation reveals the social status of the communities, their changing demography as well as the land-use history of the city.
6 video files with annotation are available at https://pad.ma/grid/title/Arrivals_%26_Departures

Bar Dancers Movement, 2005: Dancing bars, a unique phenomenon of Mumbai and few other cities in Maharashtra, was a low end entertainment industry that provided live entertainment in drinking holes. Women used to dance to the tune of popular film songs in order to increase the sale of alcohol and develop client loyalty. It was a prime source of livelihood for women of a certain class and that, to a great extent, influenced the increase of women’s labour migration to the city. In 2005, Maharashtra Govt. banned the dance bars on the ground of social morality, rendering 75,000 women jobless.

27 video files of testimonies of the dancers, patrons, bar owners as well as documentation of protest meetings, public hearings and news coverage are uploaded in https://pad.ma/grid/title/Bar_Dancers&source==Godaam,_Majlis

Bazaars, 2002: Indian bazaars are microcosm of its intricate social ecology and complex material cultures. 14 such bazaars in Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Trivandrum and Goa are documented and uploaded in https://pad.ma/grid/title/source==Godaam,_Majlis&project==Made_in_India

Behrampada, 1993: A pre-dominantly Muslim settlement located near the train station on the eastern side of Bandra was maligned and persecuted during the communal riots in 1992-93. Majlis tried to initiate a peace process, counter the malicious media report, provide relief material and finally, after failing in all that, made a documentary – I live in Behrampada. The documentary turned out to be an important resource for the secular movement in the country.

As per Majlis’ commitment to resource sharing and found footage filmmaking the rushes of I Live in Behrampada have been released for recycling. 14 files are uploaded in https://pad.ma/grid/title/source==Godaam,_Majlis&project==I_Live_in_Behrampada

Cityscape, 2002: The over familiar city can still appear different on some days or in the company of some people. It could be Marine Drive on a lazy Sunday afternoon or children selling national flags on the Republic Day or Amitabh Bachchan traveling through the workers’ quarters or even a gated zone of ‘pure vegetarian people’. Different people claim the city differently at different times. Few such video files are uploaded in https://pad.ma/grid/title/title=Cityscape&source==Godaam,_Majlis

Dharavi Livelihood Project, 2009: This portal is developed by Richa Hushing. Dharavi, popularly perceived as Asia’s second largest urban slum is also known for its subversive strategies and astute resilience. It is home for numerous sweatshops that feed the multinational manufacturing giants as well as countless autonomous enterprises. Populated both by the ‘originals’, such as, Marathi speaking Koli community (the fisherfolks), and migrant communities, such as, Tamil tannery workers or Gujarati speaking Kumbhars (Potters community) – Dharavi’s social trajectory is more complex than that of the entire city. The Govt. proposes to revitalise the land use in this low-rise settlement by developing the settlement vertically and then, by releasing the excess land in the real estate market.

Majlis launched a programme to document the livelihood practices and their land use pattern in Dharavi to assess the impact of the proposed gentrification model on the lives of its current inhabitants. 29 video files, with documentation of livelihood practices and testimonies ranging from traditional occupation of fishing to unusual work of a female mochi, are uploaded on https://pad.ma/grid/title/source==Godaam,_Majlis&project==Dharavi_Documentation_Project

Interviews with eminent citizens: Filmmaker Saeed Akhtar Mirza (2010), poet and politician Namdev Dhasal (2004), constitution expert Justice Srikrishna (2007) and Shivsena ideologue Pramod Navalkar (2004) were interviewed extensively. 6 files are uploaded in https://pad.ma/grid/title/list==shaina:Majlis_Interviews

Koli Women & Livelihood, 2004: The women of fisherfolk community in Mumbai, popularly called as Koli women, is distinct entity. They dominate the fishing trade – men do the fishing and the women manage the marketing. They are big women with loud presence in public life. But with the rising trends of gentrification of the city and home delivery system their livelihood has turned precarious. We have extensively followed their struggle which includes occasional brush with the xenophobic politics. 6 such files are available in https://pad.ma/grid/title/title=Koli_&source==Godaam,_Majlis

Migrants, Settlers and Originals, 2004: For Majlis’ film 7 Islands and a Metro a number of middle class and educated / professional members of various communities were interviewed on the issues of belonging and the rights to stay. Bombay was a cluster of islands and fishing hamlets only 300 years ago and thus, theoretically, all communities have migrated to the emerging city from somewhere or other over the three centuries. Hence the argument over authenticity, in terms of right to citizenship, is more of a matter of chronology and number – who arrived when and in what number determined the variable right to stay. 9 files of testimonies on citizenship are uploaded in https://pad.ma/grid/title/title=migrants&source==Godaam,_Majlis

Mumbai Fire Brigade, 2006: Fire brigade possesses a vast archive of images of the cityscape and infrastructural collapses as they regularly document their own rescue works. Though owing to the culture of resource control in India these images are not accessible to people. However a few such video files were acquired by Majlis and 6 of them are uploaded in https://pad.ma/grid/title/source==Godaam,_Majlis&project==Mumbai_Fire_Brigade

Neighbourhood, 2004-06: The video literacy project of Majlis resulted in community youth groups documenting their neighbourhoods. 6 such videos are uploaded in https://pad.ma/grid/title/title=neighbourhood_video

Samyukta Maharashtra (United Maharashtra), 2005: The popular movement and its eventual success for the formation of Marathi language-based state (Maharashtra) and accession of Bombay to that state in the 1950s was widely viewed as a vital people’s movement in the independent India. It was seen as an assertion against the colonial system of governance. However, the later development of identity politics and majoritarianism in the region has made some political observers speculate whether the popularity of the Samyukta Maharashtra movement carried the seed of ultra-regionalism and language territorialism. Responding to these conflicting perceptions and also to document the testimonies of the major players of the movement Majlis recorded a discussion session, led by Pushpa Bhave and participated by Prof. Sadanand Varde: Samajwadi leader, economist, former state minister of education; Pushpa Trilokeka: Journalist; Tara Reddy: Member of CPI (communist party of India), also active in women’s movement. Himmatbhai Zaveri: Samajwadi leader, and also part of the Gujarati community, which was largely against the movement. 5 video files of the discussion are uploaded in https://pad.ma/grid/title/source==Godaam,_Majlis&project==Majlis_talkshow_on_Sanyukta_Maharashtra_Movement

Pila House – The entertainment district of Bombay, comprising of bazars, theatres and red light area. It was marked as Play House (hybridised by the locals as Pila House) by the British administration in the 1850s. 5 annotated video files on the metamorphosis of the neighbourhood is uploaded in https://pad.ma/grid/title/title=pila&source==Godaam,_Majlis

Roadside Shrines, 2004: As a densely populated and space starved city Bombay lives, prays and fights on the roadside. Roadside shrines are sometimes territorial markers and some other times bearer of the culture of the migrant communities who live and work on the streets of the city. Documentation of 5 such street architecture is uploaded in https://pad.ma/grid/title/title=roadside&source==Godaam,_Majlis

7 Islands and a Metro Unedited rushes from the film, mainly testimonies of the citizens, are uploaded at https://pad.ma/grid/title/source==Godaam,_Majlis&project==7_Islands_And_A_Metro

All uploaded video files from the Godaam of Majlis can be accessed at https://godaam.pad.ma

There are also 27 files of documentation of the 2004 loksabha election in Mumbai. This was a crucial election at the end of the term of the first rightwing BJP-led Govt at the centre. These files are not yet annotated or uploaded / released.