Whose City Is It Anyway?

Reflecting on the blog by Diya Shelke, Educator at Local Gyan | By Pushnami Kasture 

When we dedicated The Commons at the Upadhyaya Foundation, our intention was simple: give back to the social sector by providing a physical sanctuary where meaningful ideas could take root. So, when LocalGyan approached us looking for a venue, we didn't just want to hand over a key—we wanted to co-create.

Knowing Local Gyan’s deep expertise in place-based learning and their unique ability to turn real-world, local surroundings into living classrooms, we brought an idea to the table:

What if we used this space to hold a session for kids that teaches them about Mumbai, coexistence, and compassion?

Local Gyan embraced the idea with incredible generosity. Leveraging their place-based framework, they took that seed, brought in their expertise, and gamified the concepts into a rich, interactive session. I jumped into the brainstorming sessions to help shape the flow, making it a true process of mutual learning. Seeing our space fill with curiosity was deeply fulfilling for us.

On 29th August 2026, as the morning began, that shared energy set the tone for the kids, and Diya Shelke, Educator at Local Gyan, captures so beautifully how the rest of the day unfolded from there:

What if Mumbai were not just a city of people? What if, beneath the traffic, buildings, and busy streets, there was another city quietly living alongside us?

A city of mangroves, beaches, forests, and creeks. A city of flamingos at Thane Creek, trees in Aarey, pollinators moving between flowers, dogs finding their way through neighbourhoods, and countless smaller creatures that we often don't notice.

This was the core of our workshop, "Fantastic Beasts and How to Include Them"—an exploration of animal empathy, Mumbai's biodiversity, and looking at a familiar city from a slightly different perspective.

When the children first entered the space, they were quite shy. But as we began talking about animals they already knew—favourite pets or creatures they had seen around—the room warmed up, and questions began to flow naturally. We started with what was familiar and then moved towards what was not.

Most children knew that dogs and cats lived around them. They could name animals from books, documentaries, or zoos. But gradually, they began to realise that there was much more life hidden in plain sight. Some residents of the city are simply easy to miss.

The "Chiku" activity helped us explore this through the perspective of a street dog. The children were already somewhat familiar with imagining an animal's point of view, but the exercise made them realize that empathy is more than just feeling sorry for another creature. For some, it became a little overwhelming. So we paused, did a grounding physical activity, and then returned to a core question:

If we understand what another animal experiences, what can we do about it?

That question stayed with us as we explored Mumbai itself as a habitat.

Mangroves, Thane Creek, and Aarey Forest became more than just places where animals happen to live. The children began noticing the connections between different organisms and their surroundings, discovering that an ecosystem is really a network of relationships and dependencies. Habitat was no longer just a location—it was the entire collection of conditions that allow life to exist.

Bringing the discussion closer to their own neighbourhoods, we asked: Who are we missing?

We looked at avenue trees, pollinators, and smaller forms of life. Connecting these concepts to their immediate surroundings made the ideas feel tangible. That’s the power of place-based learning—the city itself becomes a classroom. A tree on the street, a bird on a building, or a small patch of vegetation becomes the starting point for a bigger question.

Then came the big shift: the children became city designers.

The goal wasn't to build a city designed entirely around animals, but to think about balance.

What could we design that works for humans while also considering the creatures that share these spaces with us?

And with design came the realization of consequences. Every change we make to a city affects something else—a new road, a building, or a cleared patch of vegetation can make life easier for some and harder for others. The children began seeing city planning as a series of choices with real impact.

A couple of personal interactions particularly stayed with us.

Some children initially talked about wanting specific breeds of animals as pets. But as we explored what those animals actually need to thrive, they recognized that wanting an animal and being prepared to care for it are two very different things. Another child shared that he had a crab and used to collect shells from the sea. During our discussion, he realized that a shell might be a vital part of an ecosystem's natural cycle, and taking it away means taking something away from the habitat where it belongs.

That captured the heart of the workshop. The goal was never simply to tell children to "be kind to animals," but to help them look closer, ask questions, and understand connections.

By the end, the question "Whose City Is It?" had become much larger than it first seemed. Mumbai belongs to its people, but it is also a collection of habitats shared with countless other forms of life.

Perhaps that is what this collaboration really invited us all to do—not search for fantastic creatures somewhere far away, but slow down enough to notice the extraordinary life that has been here all along