Mumbai, July 18 -- The Bombay high court on Wednesday upheld the Maharashtra government's proposal to construct a passenger jetty at Radio Club near the Gateway of India, dismissing three petitions filed by Colaba residents who had challenged the decision on various grounds, including the project's environmental impact. Shabnam Minwalla, author of Colaba: The Diamond at the Tip of Mumbai, was one of the petitioners who went to court against the jetty project. She spoke to Jyoti Punwani about why she has a sinking feeling about it. As a resident of Colaba, I was very distraught to hear about the plans for this jetty. So, when protest meetings began, I attended all of them. I heard the speeches and agreed with what was being said. With such a massive coastline, it seemed strange to deface an area that is so meaningful not just to Colaba but to the entire city. The Gateway of India is a treasure for all of us. We live in a city which moves so fast and changes so rapidly. Every time you drive through the old mill area, it's a feat of memory to remember which mill compound was where, which chawl stood where. It's really rattling. There's no attempt to mark the past at all. It's just something we're so happy to forget and move on. In a sense, this one area [where the jetty is being built] has been with the city for at least a hundred years. It's been more or less intact, or has grown in a very sensitive fashion. To me, this area is a repository of so many stories: stories of the lighthouses, the Gateway, the sea, the Radio Club, our colonial past and our reaction to it. This is the area from where the British left the city's shores. This is an area that belongs to the city. If you were to visit on weekends, you would see busloads of people coming here, all dressed up. Little girls with their pink ribbons; little boys with their topis and kurtas; women with big families-all coming from every corner of the city to, as we say, hawa khane (have some fresh air). There's so much excitement in the air as they go around, buying chana, buying keychains, feeding pigeons. It's really a place for people to come and see this other part of the city, some of them for the first time. You can see them looking at the buildings, pointing to Cafe Leopold. It's a huge and important part of the city. To me, it seems completely illogical and sad that you would build something bang in the middle of this one rare open stretch, a space which is beautiful and meaningful. I just can't understand it. It is a single beautiful promenade. Most people walk up and down that stretch. It's a part of the whole. Of course, the Gateway is the jewel of the crown, though now one can't just walk up to it like we could. In a sense, this has been a movement of the upper middle class. But it isn't so much about Radio Club. The concerns are more about traffic, littering, and also about not defacing a heritage area, hoping to preserve that rare corner of the city that remains connected with the past. Yes, thankfully. But I still feel, what's the need to build anything more? One can understand fulfilling the need for transport, but why make it this monstrous commercial hub? By building parking spaces and restaurants, there's bound to be more traffic and more littering. As it is, it's difficult to navigate the stretch from Regal Cinema. These new constructions will definitely change the flavour of the area. They are destroying a treasure. It was, and it was very exciting. In those days, the Gateway was open, and there were benches to sit outside it. We'd watch the boats going by, and walk along the seafront. And that sea wall-it's still a part of us. I still have a tactile memory of its slight warmth and that knubbly feeling. They'll have to break it to build this jetty. Already, it's cracking and showing signs of wear and tear because of the work they've started. To me, Colaba holds a lot of meaning. I've grown up here; I'm a fourth-generation Colaba-ite, and my daughters are fifth-generation. But it's also because Colaba is such a multicultural area, it accommodated people from everywhere. It's like being part of a patchwork quilt, where different people live happily side by side. Walk down Colaba Causeway, and you can hear 10 different languages on this one stretch. That magic is unusual....