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 !”