Bori Bunder

A new visitor to Mumbai, going Northwards from Apollo Bunder, will come across Carnac Bunder, Wadi Bunder and so on but will keep wondering where, on his way, he missed Bori Bunder. He will further start wondering  about one more  bunder, viz Masjid Bunder. Its  masjid, viz, the Jumma Masjid, is not so close and there is no bunder at all, unless some Carnac got the  bunder named after him !

Coming to Bori Bunder, however, we are told there was a shallow stretch behind what was once called Frere Road. Small boats, mainly of fishermen,  landed up there. Bori muslims, who set up shops on Mohammed Ali Road, brought their merchandise from Surat towards North and Ratnagiri towards South, off-loaded here. Probably that’s how it got its name.

When the British planned the first railway in the country, they looked for a place where heavy materials like rails, sleepers, girders etc could be brought and stacked up, to start with. A little later, the same facility would be used for unloading heavy locomotives, coaches and wagons. They, therefore, worked on making the shallow stretch deep enough, to build a jetty.  The jetty opposite the original Rex Cinema became this place.

The railway station had to be protected from invaders and hence, a location inside the then Fort was chosen.   A part of the fort has been still kept, though not at all cared for.

Tracks were also laid till Ballard Pier. This enabled Frontier Mail to start from there, so that the  British could directly get down from a  ship berthed there and board a train, which would take  them right up tp the Frontier Province, which had Peshawar as its capital.

The British needed communication throughout the country. They, therefore, built the General Post Office (GPO) just next to the station, since mail was those days carried in trains.  That is how the Frontier Mail got its name. They also built the Central Telegraph  office (CTO), sort of mid way between Bori Bunder, which was to be the main line terminus for Great Indian Peninsula (GIP)Railway  and the future main line terminus of the then Bombay Baroda & Central India  (BB&CI) Railway.   Telegraph lines ran parallel to railway tracks and hence the CTO had to be close to where the railway lines came close enough !

The British also needed to run the administration of the city from a place which was close enough to where they lived, viz, Colaba and Cuffe Parade. The working staff, however, had to commute conveniently. Hence the BMC Head Quarters came to be located at Bori Bunder.

The only English newspaper, viz, The Times of India, as it is known today, had to get its heavy rolls of paper and the newspaper had to be delivered to the readers early in the morning. Their press, therefore, was located right opposite the station.

The British also set up a hospital, named after Sir Gokuldas Tejpal (GT Hospital). Recently tunnels forming war time shelters have been discovered under the GT Hopital as well as the GPO. It is likely that these ran right up to Ballard Pier, to facilitate emergency evacuation of the British, trapped in the city.

Proximity to the station was a major consideration for locating the wholesale fruit market at Crawford Market. With many architectural projects coming up in the city and the country, Sir J J School of Art was set up nearby.

Entertainment places and eateries around a station find a ready, need based market. Rex Cinema for English movies and Capitol Cinema, opposite the station, offered entertainment to travellers and commuters. In addition, Excelsior Cinema and New Empire Cinema always brought star attractions. Excelsior, which had a foyer with a nice fountain, was well known for its hot dogs, which still remain in one’s memory.

A Mumbaikar  is never at ease,  if he does not find bhel being  served somewhere. Vithal Bhelwalla, in an obscure lane, made a fortune by selling bhel in this locality.

Some of the early eateries, which survived, are those opposite the GPO. They serve big size hot puris and customers are charged only for the number of puris that they take. Potato-tomato bhaji, onion salad and pickles are  served free ! When one walks on this street  and reaches the other end, he emerges from Bazar Gate.  The bazaar here served the population residing in the then walled city.

For those who love Gujarati thalis, Narasimha Lodge, above a small book shop , mainly selling text books, on D N Rd  (then known as Hornby Rd), has been serving mouth watering food. It is a boon for office goers coming to this area.

There may be others who want continental style food at value for money rates. The railway’s upmarket restaurant on the first floor of the main line station offered a six course meal at a throw away rate. The restaurant retained its hat rack, though both, the British and hats disappeared from the scene.

We referred to a book shop above, which reminds me of two of the largest book shops in Mumbai. Taraporewalla Sons and New Book Company both had so much space that, if emptied, one could run a scooter inside !

Few may know that this area also boasts of a palace. Tata Palace, on Waudby Road,  is a structure par excellence.  Sterling Theatre was built adjoining  it. Tata Electric Companies had their offices in six floors, above the theatre. I happened to have worked in this office. I remember an exasperated person, who had come to collect a document from the first floor of this office.  Thinking that it was  only the first floor and, therefore, why take the lift, he started climbing the stairs.  He kept climbing, till the equivalent of six floors’ height was reached, when he saw the board “First Floor” !

One of my memories there is of late Mr Naval Tata contesting an election. It was a sight to see Mr Ratan Tata, wearing jeans and a handloom shirt, leading the election campaign !

I wrote, in my last blog on Dadar, that many well known cricketers have come from Shivaji Park.  Bori Bunder area has also contributed,  by nurturing many eminent cricketers, most of them being Parsis. They studied in Bharda School, next to the Capitol Cinema. Nari Contractor, Polly Umarigar, Rusi Surti and Farukh Engineer come to my mind.

A male teacher, from our community, taught there. After spending many years there, he himself looked almost like a Parsi !

Thanks to Queen Victoria, Bori Bunder got renamed as Victoria Terminus (VT).

Its glory came  alive, in Raj Kapoor’s magnum opus “Mera Naam Joker”.   The movie’s titles  appeared  with the backdrop of a procession, to give publicity to a circus, passing through the main road in front of the station. This scene was Randhir Kapoor’s maiden directorial  assignment.  The scene had gorgeous  and unforgettable musical score by Shankar Jaikishan .

The queen’s good fortune, after renaming of the station and the area, however,  did not last for too long. It got renamed once again, as “Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus” (CST)

It appeared in an Oscar winning film, with a song, which also got an Oscar. The terminus, however, left scars in the memory of the city, when unwelcome  foreigners landed at Cuffe Parade, without  visas and opened fire at innocent commuters, during evening peak hours.  I realized, it is a strange coincidence, that this post in the blog is being drafted on the fifth painful memory of that fateful night.

The Times of India, apart from doing a signal service to the city, has also gifted a world class cartoonist to us. He is none other than Shri R K Laxman.  I would like to conclude this by recalling one of his outstanding cartoons.

It showed  a typical foreigner, getting down from a taxi  in front of the CST station  and telling its driver:

“Thank you for bringing me in time. My flight is about to leave in half an hour !”

Dadar

Dadar is to Mumbai what Allahabad is to India.  The Ganges and the Yamuna rivers, which are lifelines of the heart  of India, come together at  Prayag in Allahabad.  The third sacred  river, the Saraswati, is said to be flowing underground and also takes Allahabad on her route.

Similarly, Dadar is where the Central and Western Railways, which are the  lifelines of Mumbai,  come together and then part ways.  The future Metro, like the Saraswati, will run underground, also through Dadar.

Allahabad has given India its first Prime Minister and also its reigning super star Amitabh Bachchan. Dadar has, similarly,  given super stars  of cricket, not only to India but also to the world.  Both Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar and several other Indian players of the past and today have honed their batting skills at Shivaji Park in Dadar, under famous coaches. It is not a mere park but a place of pilgrimage to the cricket lovers.

Talking of pilgrimage, Mumbai’s  one of the most revered  Siddhi Vinayak temple  is a landmark of Dadar. On Monday nights, devotees walk down barefoot from far away suburbs to the temple., for attending its aarti by early  Tuesday morning . Right from the days when Amitabh was hospitalized in Breach Candy after his grievous injury during the shooting of Manmohan Desai,s “Coolie”, till recently when the beloved cricketer of India, Yuvraj Singh recovered from his serious health problem, this has been the temple to which people in distress have gone, with utmost faith, to seek divine blessings.

 Another temple, which is a pride of heritage, is the Prabhadevi temple, from which the locality derives its name.   An equally important  place  of worship is the famous Dadar Portuguese Church.  Unlike the Portuguese Church at Girgaum, this one has been modernized twice. It bears testimony to the Portuguese rule in this part of India.

Memorials of Veer Savarkar, who  fought for India and spent the prime years of his life in Andaman’s  jail, and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, who drafted the Constitution of India, both are located on the Western coast of Dadar. Huge crowds converge at Dadar Chowpati every year,  to pay homage to Dr Ambedkar. 

The same Dadar coast has quarters for officers of  the Reserve Bank of India. It has a small auditorium, which I shall always remember for a very special evening. I attended a function there, where an audio-visual in memory of late Dattaram, one of the two  assistants  of Shankar Jaikishan, was shown. Some of his contemporaries, who are themselves but currently out of work, thanks to the monster called the synthesizer, attended the function, gave us the sad news that the music era of those days will never come back. Those days, music directors first explained to the musicians the situation of a song, lyrics, actors who would play out the scene, the playback singers and the feelings to be conveyed through the instruments. Then, after some rehearsals, there would be a grand rehearsal, attended by the director and the producer.  If a musician could not play the right note,  the music director or his assistant would personally sit with him and try to make him understand the emotional intricacies. . The person who said this said he himself had been one of the instrumentalists for  the song Aansu bhari hai yeh jeevanki raahen, koi unse kahe de, hame bhul jaayen” from Parvarish”. He said things were not going right with him, despite Dattaram himself explaining to him. Raj Kapoor, who was patiently watching it, came to him and, taking the instrument in his own hand, played it for him the right way. He asked us  “Can you imagine a star of today doing this ?”  As against that, these days they resort to synthesizers. Technologically its perfect but lacks the personal touch. 

V Shantaram, a doyen of the film industry, set up his Plaza Cinema at Dadar. This and the present landmark Shiv Sena Bhavan,  both play a  sad testimony to the city’s first  serial bomb blasts. The scars were deepened by yet another  bomb blast in Dadar West, on the bus stop of St Antonio School (near the Kabutarkhana).

Other film studios at Dadar were  the Ranjit Studio and the Shree Sound studio. Ranjit iwas located on a road in Dadar East, which has been very aptly named as Dadasaheb Phalke Marg.

Dadar boasts of a large variety of culinary  delights. On the Western side, Shetye at Shivaji Park had simple English style décor and offered authentic continental dishes, at unbelievably reasonable prices.  Dattatreya Arogya Dham served mouth watering genuine Maharashtrian thali, complete with only salted but tasty dry dal and rice, followed by aamti, patalbhaji and kothimbir wada.. Prakash Lunch Home served Maharashtrian specialities, and had menus  for people observing religious fasts. The road leading from Dadar West to Prabhadevi had a small place which had sofa set to sit and hot masala milk to sip. A major attraction of this place, however, was a radiogram. The owner himself played records of Sudhir Phadke’s Geet Ramayan, for a small fee. This was his way of offering a juke box like facility and presenting Maharasht

No mention of Dadar West could be complete without referring to Manhar Surat Bakery at Shivaji Park. I do not know whether they brought their delectable khari biscuits and nankhatais really from Surat but it hardly mattered. They were always as good as brought from  a bakery right opposite the railway station at Surat.

A gift from Dadar West to the nation is one of the earliest Catering Colleges. As HMT (Hindustan Machine Tools) proclaimed that “We make machines that make other machines”, this college brings out many chefs every year, who train other chefs later, not only in India but also in the world.

An annual show of this college serves as a value for money temporary eating joint around every X’mas. When I was on tour once, a relative of us, who worked at the then Burmah Shell, had treated my family there. My family never stopped talking about it.

If one wants a quick snack, Mama Kane’s batata wada, just outside Dadar West station still remains unparalleled. These are different in taste from those offered by Ramakant Bhavan at Khopoli, on the foot of the Western Ghats but people love these also, for their distinctive taste.

Dadar West has another  event from history. During the early twenties, a bright young Dadar boy got his engineering degree and a good Government job. Soon Gandhiji’s clarion call came, to boycott foreign makes and make do with substitutes made in India. This gentleman, like most others, was using a Parker pen and Parker ink. He decided to quit his  job and start manufacturing pens and ink. The industry, set up by him,  became popular as the House of Camlin. Who doesn’t remember a  Camel brand compass box of our school days ?

He was asked once why he chose the camel as his brand. He replied that he had once visited Kutch, where his classmate (who happened to be my father)  came from. He saw many camels there. It occurred to him that this animal sustains itself in adverse climate and, therefore, represented the plight of most Indians then. He also hated the British rulers in India and, therefore, wanted to select, as a brand,  an animal which did not exist in their country !

Dadar East, on the other side, had very different kinds of eating places. An Udipi at the foot of Tilak Bridge at Dadar appeared to have closed down recently. We almost had tears in our eyes. Two months later, we passed from there and found the place yet again alive and kicking. Short of dancing with joy, we rejoiced the moment.

Just a few steps ahead at  Dadar TT was Farmer Brothers. It offered delicious varieties of milk shakes, buttermilk, lassi and a few selected varieties of snacks, including mouth watering sandwiches with a sprinkling of mustard, to enhance the taste.

Most of today’s and even the earlier  generations do not know what TT stands for.  In the old days,  we had trams running up and down the city’s main roads.  These were pulled out in the late 60s,  to make way for cars and busses. This was one of the worst decisions of the city fathers . At Dadar , the trams terminated and turned around to go back to the city through an elaborate circular track arrangement Hence this was Dadar Tram Terminus . Later the trmas were extended to Kings Circle which became the final tram terminus

Going from Dadar TT to King’s Circle, you see Hindu Colony on the left, There is a small  outlet for delicious South Indian dishes. Towards the right, you see Parsi Colony. A quaint place in one of the buildings on Jame Jamshed Road, decorated by traditional Parsi style “rangolis was “Yezdiar”. It served excellent Parsi food, accompanied by chilled beer. Its dhansak can never be forgotten. When Yezdiar closed more tears flowed It is still remembered after 4 decades.

Mohanlal Mithaiwala, right on the Dadar T. T. (also called  known as Khodadad Circle), displayed so many varieties of freshly made sweets that one ended up buying much more than what one had originally come to buy. It also serves as the local booking office for lovers of the famous Regal Hotel at Matheran. Dotting the round of Dadar TT were landmark stores such as Khorsheds for cloth. Ketkars for Marathi masalas,Valia another cloth shop and the Irani Yezdan restaurant.  Down the road was the only toy shop in the area, Colony Stores.

Another  landmark of Dadar is the Pritam restaurant. A later addition was Pritamka Dhaba, with a full fledged residential hotel too added last. The original Pritam restaurant has an interesting association for me. That’s the place where I took my fiancée first for a dinner date. When I narrated this to a friend of mine, who was a judge and the Charity Commissioner, he said it was not mine but his story too !.

Going towards Parel we had Broadway Cinema  as another landmark which made way for a shopping centre . A little farther away  is an authentic  and value for money Punjabi food jeatery. Right opposite that was a Gurudwara and also shops like Chetsingh Gurubax, selling  musical instruments, mostly brought to Mumbai from UP.

The early forties saw a youmg boy from UP come down to Mumbai, in search of a living. He used to sleep on the footpath opposite Broadway Cinema. During monsoons, he took shelter under a staircase in a building there.  He had some knowledge of music. The shop selling the musical instruments there took his help, at times, to check is some of the instruments were tuned properly. In return, he would get a cup of tea.

Times then changed and lady luck smiled at him.  He made it big in the Indian cinema industry. He was Naushad ! When Baiju Bawra was released in Broadway (besides Super Cinema at Grant Road), he stood in the terrace of the Cinema theatre and said to himself  “ It took me so many years to cross this road !”

King’s Circle & Matunga (CR)

Calling King’s Circle as Maheshwari Udyan is like dethroning a king. It did not, however, end with that.  My engineering college, which we used to proudly call Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute (VJTI), was unceremoniously renamed as Veer mata Jeejabaj Technical Institute, The mandate to some bright chap, who was asked to change (or massacre) the name,  must have been to retain the abbreviation VJTI and yet bring in the “son of the soil” element. (or shall we say “daughter of the soil” ?)

My early remembrance of King’s Circle dates back to taking a tram right up to the tram terminus  (TT) and getting into Arora Cinema, to watch a Laurel & Hardy film. As the tram, from Museum, traversed the congested areas of Bhendi Bazar  and the mill area with a cluster of chimneys, reaching Dadar TT was a great relief. The last lap from there to King’s Circle was like passing through heaven, with well laid out houses and greenery as a part of one of the first town planning schemes. It was almost like traversing through a new city.

The locality, popularly known as Matunga (GIP), was a major suburb served by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. Predominantly the South Indian community made Matunga its home. The whole of Mumbai benefitted by patronizing the several excellent  South  Indian eateries. Starting from a first floor restaurant just outside the railway station  serving meals on the most environment friendly banana leaf to the restaurants around the King’s Circle, the South Indian cuisine available at Matunga is as authentic as in yhe state of Tamilnadu.  Coffee is still  served by yards and dhotis are  wrapped like half lungis.

Amongst the South Indian eateries, a very small Punjabi dhaba served freshly made parathas with loads of Polson butter, just one variety each of veg and non veg djshes and steaming daal. The “bhatti” was right in front and there were only three small tables facing it. (One didn’t need a fire place !)  Food was unadulterated, as their religion strictly forebids adulteration.  Even the butter was full of cholesterol !

Though the Railways named another station as Vidya Vihar, it was Matunga which deserved that name. The VJTI , which started 125 years ago, by offering a Textile Technology course, later extended  to other branches of engineering.   Eventually VJTI got the distinction of being the third engineering degree college in Western India. Till then, only Pune and Karachi offered engineering degree courses.

Next to the VJTI is Khalsa College, with its equally imposing pillars’architecture. Just behind is the University Department of Chemical Technology (UDCT).   A little farther away is the Ruia College.  Among schools, Don Bosco and Amulakh Amichand schools truly make Matungs as the Vidya Nagari.

While I was in VJTI, the then President of India, Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, was the Guest of Honour at our annual function. No doubt he had an impressive personality. Equally enthralling was the rendering of our National Anthem by the President’s  personal and exclusive orchestra.

The next annual function, however, saw  seats getting vacated fast.  As news spread that  the neighbouring Khalsa College’s annual function had a new singer performing there, there was an exodus of students from VJTI to Khalsa.   He was Mahendra Kapoor, singing  “Chaand dhalaa aur taare dube, raat gazabki aayee, husna chalaa hai iskse milne, julmki badly chhayee.” He was Mahendra Kapoor, who had shot to fame by singing it for “Sohni Mahiwal”.

A parting gift for my memory, on the last day in VJTI,  was a pleasant surprise.  I suddenly found a big banner of “XYZ Medical College” , pasted on a wall behind the marble stairs in front entrance.  Debonair Shashi Kapoor and Sadhana, looking extremely pretty, both  dressed like  collegians, kept going up and down. Bimal Roy stood in a corner, directing a key scene of “Prem Patrs.  Shashi Kapoor drops a letter on the staircase. Sadhana later picks it up, reads and goes straight to the Principal, to complain. That ruins his  academic career. After the movie was released, boys, including me,  learnt a lesson that they should never pass on a letter like that !

VJTI is located on a quiet lane, which housed many small villas. Legendary singer K L Saigal and Prithviraj JKapoor lived in two of the villas.  Prithviraj, while taking an evening stroll, dropped in at the VJTI canteen. Some of us were sitting there, trying to complete our journals. He smiled at us and gracefully ordered tea for all of us, saying  “Tum hi hamara bhavishya ho. Tum engineers banoge, deshko aage le jaaoge.”

He lived in a first floor  apartment, which had two bedrooms.  He and his wife occupied one and raj Kapoor and his wife occupied the other. Shammi Kapoor and Shashi Kapoor slept in the balconies.  Both of them studied in Don Bosco School, which was just behind.

V Shantaram had announced making of “Shakuntala”. Prithviraj  was tipped  to get the lead role of Dushyant. Shantaram, however, opted for Chandramohan.  Prithviraj s disappointed and decided to play the role by producing a drama  “Shakuntala” himself. He set up Prithvi Theatres, with a shoe string budget.  He played the main character of Dushyant and eclipsed  Chandramohan’s  image from viewers’ minds.

He gave the responsibility of stage management to Raj Kapoor. Satyanarayan, who later became choreographer and Shankar, who later joined Jaikishan to score music, assisted Raj Kapoor.

Shammi Kapoor was cast as Bharat (Dushyant’s son).  Dresses were stitched on their  terrace and rehearsals were held at Royal Opera House.  Shammi Kapoor’s attendance in school, however, started falling and their Principal became furious. He asked Shammi Kapoor to get his father to school. He, however, got his elder brother Raj Kapoor to schhol, to hear the dressing down. The Principal said that Shammi would have to choose either studies or acting.  Raj Kapoor lost no time in replying that it would have to be acting then.  That was the end of Shammi Kapoor’s school career in Don Bosco. He was soon admitted to New Era School at Hughes Road, which was closer to Royal Opera House and would, therefore, make it easier for him to attend rehearsals.

What is not known in public domain about this area is its importance for power supply to the city of Mumbai. Tatas put up their third and the then the largest hydro electric power station at Bhira in southern Maharashtra in mid twenties. This power was brought to Mumbai  at Dharavi  at Matunga  and distributed  to railways, mills and residences from there.  When Tatas ordered hughe transformers then, the manufacturers in Britain were aghast at their size. Those were the largest made in the world  at that time. Tatas, however, had even bigger visions.

Their Dharavi Receiving station housed the office of one of their senior executives, in charge of their hydro electric power stations.  His hobby was his penchant for mathematics.  Tatas hand picked him, to lead their foray into software, He came to be known as the father of software technology business in India.

P.S. Some of the information stated above has been sourced from an informative write up in a popular column in "Mumbai Samachar" daily newspaper, run by Shri Amrit Gangar. He is very knowledgeable and I acnowledge, with thanks,  his valuable contribution.

JVV:R0:19.3.2012