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All it took were a few assorted animals to be placed along a pavement, a parapet and a park in the Churchgate area for the city's aesthetic watchdogs to go ballistic. The animals are sculptures, painted and of a curiously varied quality.

The cows are veritable works of art which may last into posterity while the lions are a bit of an insult to the animal kingdom. But all art appreciation is subjective and most people were apparently offended by all of them.

Just before that, it was a mural on a Naval dockyard wall that fell within a heritage precinct. This is a very interesting word, incidentally, that sounds grand but which I always thought had something to do with police stations in America. Anyway, in a heritage precinct, it turns out that you cannot do whatever you want without permission.

Not only had the painter, the commissioner of the painter and the supervisor of the painting project not taken the required permission, there was an additional charge –– that the mural itself was quite unattractive. On both counts, it seemed, the charges could stick.

The nautical theme was followed but in a very obvious and even childish way. And it did not fit in with Kala Ghoda. The painted cows with their contemporary graphics or their folksy motifs fit better because they both mimic and mirror the Mumbai of today. Fat fish jumping out of the waves next to dumpy ships don't cut it the same way.

What began next was more serious than cows and fishes. The heritage site of the Gateway of India has been on a refurbishment plan for years. The plan that was accepted would cost crores and required at least a 100 trees to be cut down.

When you first hear that, you wonder where all those trees are within the Gateway of India. They're not around the monument. They're in the adjoining park and if you look closely, are old, beautiful, and provide backdrop to a statue of Shivaji. The area around the Gateway itself is clear of vegetation.

Immediately, the various factions of the heritage community ranged themselves on opposing sides. A hapless government, which was only trying to do its best by giving to the experts what it would have surely got flak for attempting, looked on confused. Allegations flew thick and fast. No solution has been made public as yet.

So what does one want from the Gateway of India? For years, the inside was renowned only for the strong smell of urine. In recent times, a ghastly stabbing comes to mind. In between, you take a boat ride to Elephanta, you get your picture taken, you gawk at the fancy cars driving into the Taj or you look outward into the harbour and like Rat in Wind in the Willows, wonder if you should answer the call of the sea.
Nothing fancy then. Clean places to sit, nice things to eat, a little bit of colour, yes, some greenery, a little organisation of the boatwallahs, and with any luck, a clean usable loo.

Mumbai is a city that enjoys exercising its voice. Its activists like to make themselves heard and often get results. We are grateful. But now we require grown-up behaviour. We do not want to watch the unsightly spectacle of the same group of heritage conservationists fighting over every project. It will start to look like silly one-upmanship. It will soon start to look like someone somewhere is only looking to get the next coveted conservation project from the government. It'll start to look like one more wheeling and dealing exercise. It'll start to look like the slum redevelopment scheme.

In a speech welcoming Lord Irwin, then viceroy to Bombay in 1927, Sir Homi Mody, a delightful raconteur, made the point that, "We are the Gateway of India, and the great gods and little gods who rule our destinies from the sheltered heights of Simla or the dusty plains of Delhi, make their first acquaintance with the country through Bombay; and quite nice things they say about her in the exuberance of the first meeting."

Let us keep our exuberance and present that face –– even if the first sight of Mumbai is now the slums of Santacruz.

Email: b_ranjona@dnaindia.net