RAJNAGAR MILL
A walk through the remnants of the past
This photo book is made as a part of the course Photography in Semester 2 of the 2019-20 M.Des Graphic Design programme of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, by Rohit Pawar, Amogh Bhatnagar, Nikita Jaiswal. Guides: Mr Saurabh Shrivastava, Mr Vishal Arora Designed and Printed in Ahmedabad / February 2020
RAJNAGAR MILL
A walk through the remnants of the past
Through this project, we seek to capture a glimpse of the abandonment and desolaton we felt on our visit to Rajnagar Mill No. 1. A place characterised by emptiness turned out to be abundantly occupied by a variety of textures, fixures, and remnants of a past which once used to be glorious. Our intent was for the viewer to feel what we felt when we went there- not a sense of emptiness, but one of the nostalgia we felt for something which wasn’t ours to begin with. We found beauty in decay and desolation; and that transcendetal beauty was what we tried to capture, as opposed to a mere documentation of what the space once was and what it is now. Sure, the past was full of glory and prosperity which the present seems to be devoid of. But we saw beauty in reality.
Established in 1925, The Rajnagar Mill was Ahmedabad’s first mill compound, which led Ahmedabad to its golden days of textile production and trade, and its sobriquet as the ‘Manchester of India’. Its days of glory met a tragic end as the once-booming mills started shutting down in the 1980s, and Rajnagar Mills finally closed down the last of its gates and shutters in the early 2000s.
There is an expanse of abandonment and decay, which may not be very pleasant to look at, but it does serve as a harrowing reminder of the past that was once glorious.
As you enter the mill compound, you are greeted by a Victorian structure which houses the now-decaying office of the premises. There are remnants of the clerical hustle which existed here until not too long ago, in the form of desks piled with office stationery, calendars on the walls, bureaucratic chairs, and fans which catch dust.
Towards the entrance, it is hard to miss the metal gate with a piercing gaze of its own. Are you looking at the edifice, or is it looking back into your soul?
The compound is divided into several well-organised blocks, most of which have been sealed off and condemned to a state beyond disrepair. There is pitch darkness in most rooms. Some others are illuminated by piercing shafts of light which recreates the grandeur of the days when this compound produced yardage which was one of the finest in the world. This vast chamber once housed apparatus for ginning and spinning of cotton. Broken remnants of those machines now lie scattered through this space, spinning decaying tales of their own now.
Man claims to have victory over nature, but in the end, nature reclaims everything. What was once the toilet block is now overtaken by vegetation and foliage, leaving a very faint echo of its putrid past. The landscape today feels almost surreal, wild- overtaken by the terrain and its flora and fauna, starkly in comparison to the methodic way in which the structures were laid out in the past.
The abandonment and decay have grossly affected the perception of scale in space. Industrial spaces tend to portray the grandeur of human inventiveness, but the passage of time made it all look insignificant in front of the prowess of natural forces.
Foliage creeps in, in various manners, all over, under, between, beyond, and across the abandoned structuresframing and being framed by the architectural remains.
Metallic springs, cans, and bales lie strewn across the spinning and weaving chambers- an artist’s eye might see geometric forms and compositions, but these scattered elements are also a testimony to the reckless abandon and the sudden collapse of the enterprise.
The entire compound lies covered in multitudes of textures, making the decay and abandonment of each sight immensely tangible.
The entire compound did not shut down all at once. It was slowly phased out of order, one unit shutting down after the other. There were insecurity and unrest. Trade-ins and trade-offs. Machinery was an expensive resource and had to be sold off to cover the losses. What was once the beacon of industrial excellence became a liability. The machinery was no longer the mill’s own asset.
While most of the machinery was sold off, certain remnants of the mechanical contraptions still lie unattended in the mills. Some of them even bearing yarn, threads and fabrics left stuck inside, giving the impression as though the machinery was still running while the structure collapsed.
The most striking reminder of space’s past came in the form of the piles of cotton which lay unattended, in a state of decay in the spinning mills.
Masonry and tin are the major players in the material palette if one were to define it for space. There are places where they hold up the structure to date and others where they barely did. The tin roofing of the power loom mill, which was once held up by the columns on the front, has now collapsed, forming a series of crests and valleys across layers and layers of tin.
Some identifiers of the past functions of the space remain, while others have faded away. This huge workshop was once a spinning unit. Now, it’s a vast expanse of nothingness, with broken parts of machinery punctuating its edges.
Lockdown is an understatement for the state that the Rajnagar Mill Compound is in. But the locks do add unexpected beauty and character to the site. Each section is closed by a different kind of lock. This particular shutter had a lever which was pulled down by piling weights on the chain.
There was a colossal room which was locked under multiple layers of brickwork, metal, glass and mesh. A corner of one window was however pulled down, and one could see the ceiling of the workshop collapsed on to the machinery, which was still in action while this happened.
The boiler room, which was once the powerhouse of the mill in its steam-powered days is now just a relic to it’s powerful past.
Long alleys separate the narrow dyeing and printing chambers from the more mechanically driven parts of the mill compounds. While the spinning and weaving happened on large, mechanical machinery, the dyeing, printing, and painting happened with the finesse of the human touch. Now, these chambers are empty and their windows are covered with glass, metal and bricks.
This chamber used to be the engineering workshop, where machinery was repaired by skilled engineers in case of a breakdown. now, the entire Compound lies in a state of breakdown.
Belief transcends the limits of reality. What was once a temple of technical prowess now houses a temple of the snake deity. The boiler room leads to a basement leading to this dimly lit shrine, which supposedly leads to a network of underground tunnels populated by venomous snakes.
Certain parts of the complex exist in a state of limbo between use and disuse. Some workers of the newly constructed Mill № 2 still reside in the living quarters, in close proximity to the temple of a local deity. Old shelves are sometimes stacked with newer items, creating a contrast between the new and old. Old signs find new relevance in contemporary times. This one reads, “Time is precious like gold. Do not waste it.”