How community-driven Bombay Underground has been creating reading spaces in Mumbai since 1997

When Himanshu started Bombay Underground in 1997 with other like-minded Mumbaikars at the time, he may have not imagined the extent of the spark that was lit with the movement that introduced city dwellers to art, reading and zines; a counter-culture of sorts that was still unheard of or not as popular in Mumbai at the time. Over the years as life happened and many of the founding members moved away, the Mumbaikar kept at it. Since then, he has converted many areas of the city into community art spaces, one of the most popular being the Dharavi Art Room in the heart of what is considered to be one of the world's largest slums and happens to find a home in the maximum city.

He shares, "Bombay Underground started close to 20 years ago working with activist groups, community groups, then slowly setting up spaces around with resources as books, so children could come and make leaflets, pamphlets, booklets and zine." Himanshu is one of two people currently running Bombay Underground; the other being Aqui Thami, a city-based artist who also started a feminist library called Sister Library in Bandra in 2019.

Working with street booksellers

Undoubtedly, the work done by Himanshu over two decades has culminated in the last few years. This comes from the fact that it has been concurrently fuelled over the last decade by Aqui, who joined Himanshu in the silent art movement in the city. They have been closely working with Mumbai booksellers to help cater to the needs of the city's underprivileged children. Aqui explains, "Every year, we make it a point to buy books from street booksellers. All of the books we have at Bombay Underground, Sister Library and our personal collections are all second-hand books." Thami not only limits to buying second-hand books in India but also from charity bookshops she travels to when abroad every time she has taken the Sister Library collection there. "I bring back large suitcases full of books to India," shares the artist gleefully emphasising on how it has been a very political and joyful choice to work with booksellers.

She explains, "Booksellers do not sell books as a tedious job but because they enjoy it. They are not well-educated but will get for you what you want to read, they have such great references for you, get you amazing books and they turn into friends." Becoming an annual practice for them over the years, Aqui says they buy the books just before the rains, and make sure they are taken care of. "For us as Bombay Underground and as artists, the Mumbai street booksellers are people who actually educated us and have politicised us and made us the artists we are today, and we feel great value in standing by them." The fact that these books are not only some of the best in variety but also really cheap and affordable makes them ideal for access to the common people.

Creating a space for books and zines

Having run the Dharavi Art Room for quite some time now, they also use it as a medium for slum children to have access to books and in the process access to art. "We also consistently make content with publication in the form of zines, children's books with the Dharavi Art Room space," shares Himanshu. Bombay Underground can also be credited for hosting the Bombay Zine Fest, said to be the first of its kind in the Indian sub-continent, over the last six years, the last one being held in October 2022. They were able to host it even through the Covid-19 pandemic with the first one being held in January 2022 and the next in October 2021 before Omicron took over. It is one festival that they say has always been independent. "When we started the first Bombay Zine Fest, we did not have any tabling or zine makers and have since worked tremendously hard to build the zine culture in India," explains 33-year-old Aqui.

Today, it has all paid off for the duo because they have a lot more people excited to table and make zines, so every year, they make sure to have 10 new tablers and zine makers, as they are seeing a change in the kind of books to be made and written. "Zines are still that space where the content is more personal and heartfelt," adds the founder of Mumbai's only feminist library. She also highlights how they haven't spent on advertising at all but still manage to engage with all the stakeholders first-hand and see as many as 500 - 800 people visit every year, a long way from when they first started. Aqui shares, "The first zine fest that South Asia had was so working class because it was held under a tadpatri and out of a garage here in Bandra." Himanshu doesn't fail to add, "But people did come".

Building a community

So, what makes Bombay Underground unique? "We don't do anything for profit or aren't motivated by it. We don't make our zines to amass wealth. When we make our reading spaces and reading interventions in different places, the idea has always been for different people from different socio-economic groups to have the space to come together," adds Aqui. The interventions are where they conduct reading sessions, an activity very close to the duo's heart. Having come from difficult circumstances without any access to the kind of books they read but being able to make them available to read today, has been life-changing for them.

While they run many art and reading spaces, they are also actively making and publishing zines, which Himanshu points out is important because dissemination of information is much-needed too. He shares, "We are not yet publishers of books, but we make zines. It is a totally different dynamics in terms of circulation, production and negotiating levels of being an artist or maker, which is also fun for us." The fact that they are involved in the process makes it even more exciting for them. "We are booksellers the day we are making zines on the street, which I have learned from the booksellers," adds the city-based artist, who reveals he worked with booksellers in between college to earn extra money back in the day.

Interestingly, Bombay Underground doesn't have a permanent space but is hoping to lay roots through donors, like every other initiative of theirs, which has been aided by well-wishers, who not only donate but also buy books to help in donations and running of their reading spaces. Over the years, they have set up shop temporarily in different locations including Harkat Studios. They also nurture Bombay Zine Library, which houses a collection of their works from over the years. Along with the Dharavi Art Room for women and children, most recently they opened Fluxus Chapel in Bandra on Chapel Road. Bombay Underground has had interventions outside temples, public toilets and bus depots in many neighbourhoods including Mankhurd and Parel. However, they are not only about zines and books, but have also played an instrumental part in making posters, stickers, campaigns and performances in the city but their love for the former seems to transcend all because of the autonomy it provides them as artists.

Evolution of the zine culture

Himanshu adds, "Being artists arises from this need of not being given or having our own spaces including difficult childhoods to start finding material. Even before zines, the kind of books we had were very interesting publications that are not big but are small-scale, run by collectives, and are image heavy that became easier when it came to managing to put language in it." The duo makes zines from the artwork by kids and women in Dharavi as publications, a by-product of the Dharavi Art Room. This coupled with their individual works, and making zines for grassroots movements that they believe in, is fulfilling.

Interestingly, Himanshu has been making zines long before they became popular, starting as early as 1998. Aqui realistically admits it has only picked up as a culture in the last three years, even though the buzz had started over six years ago. "Around five years ago, there were only a handful of people who were doing it. Then it became really popular and was taught in colleges and design courses. The quality of zines and writing has degraded due to this. They look very polished and nice but the content is very shallow," she says extremely disappointed with the state of affairs in zine-making.

She explains, "It is a total shift in the kind of people who are making zines because it has always been done by historically oppressed people and suddenly, we have people who have privilege making them and you can see how the language and the grammar of it has totally changed." This can be seen when people pick up shinier, finer, colourful and hard-bound books that are called "zines" at the zine fest.

"They would not pick up anything that is 'sada' or centre-stapled with regular paper and that goes against what zines actually are. Over the years, I have seen a big shift and appropriation of zine culture by the mainstream," Aqui voices her concern. However, she sounds hopeful that the buzz in the counterculture will steer clear and true to its origins. A thought we believe in when we see the finished product of an amateur artist, busy practicing his craft while we were there, and as we flip through pages of ‘Meow' and ‘Nom Nom', two of our favourites from their collection.

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