Life in Lego Colours

India got its first mall,Chennai’s Spencer Plaza,in 1991 — the year PV Narasimha Rao’s government opened the economy. In the next few decades,air-conditioned boxes would sprout across the country,their iconography of neon colours and chrome glass an arrogant claim on the landscape. Every city and town wanted one. It became,for many cities and residents,a symbol of their distance from the metro and its possibilities,as well as a means to close that gap. People trooped in with gusto,even if they were more generous while spending at the food court than the high street.

The slowing economy brings signs of a mall fatigue. In the last two years,30-40 malls have shut down,according to research firm Beyond Squarefeet Advisory,and few new ones are being commissioned. In some of the existing ones,as much as half of the retail space is unoccupied. The reasons range from the middle class scrimping despite the lure of Flat 50% Off boards to a wrong mix of retail choices by mall developers.

But the mall,of course,is not just a place for the Homo economicus. While in the US,it came up in desolate suburbs through the 1960s and 1970s,in India it altered the geography of densely populated cities before it spread elsewhere. The bazaar is a sensory assault of smell,sights and inconvenience but inside the mall,the profusion of things is tamed into neat,bright shelves and shopping counters. You could lounge here,with friends or mothers-in-law,over expensive coffee or Happy McDonald meals,while you let the children loose in gaming arcades. It was a new social space,hermetically sealed from the chaos and heat outside. It had the unmistakable air of elsewhere.

It was liberating too,and not just for the couples who found themselves uninterrupted in their few minutes of privacy. It was inviting to women,for whom streets and parks are not always safe places to loiter. For a youngster starting out as a salesperson,the airconditioned shops had a respectability that they would not find at a kirana store,where owners paid you a pittance and patronised you as “beta”.

But for all that,the mall is a poor apology for a town square. Unlike the cinema hall,which in its architecture mirrored the various layers of Indian society,and,most importantly,accommodated them under one roof —from the front-benchers to the middle class in the dress circle and balcony seats—the mall keeps out as many as it lets in. It’s not a place where the poor are welcome. In Ahmedabad,a mall recently imposed an entry fee on Muslims to ensure “quality footfall” — and then backtracked when the howls of outrage got loud.

Malls are often sterile spaces,poorly designed and ill-ventilated. The popular ones come to life on weekends and holidays,energised by thousands of streaming visitors. Many of these residents have few other options of entertainment or relaxation — too few parks or playgrounds or pretty riverfronts,too many historic buildings allowed to go to seed. The popularity of the shopping mall signifies both the poverty of options in our urban life,and how we make the most of it.

Perhaps,as we get more used to living in cities,we will demand more out of our urban experience. Affluent citizens of Alaknanda in south Delhi,for example,lobbied and seem to have managed to stall the construction of a 720,000 sq ft mall in their neighbourhood,saying they don’t want the endless parking nightmare it will bring,and would rather have that space used for tennis courts and swimming pools.

But too many of us,crammed into too few cities,have to settle for the anodyne fantasy of Lego colours,faux American names and retail therapy that a mall serves — though we might liven things up occasionally with a flash mob.