One may wonder why non-glamorous areas such as Parel and Lalbaug
are finding a place in this series on
Mumbai. Few may know, however, that
Parel was a truly up market place once upon a time. So much that the then
Governor of the Bombay Presidency chose
to reside there. The road leading to the Governor’s House, was, therefore,
named as “Government Gate Road.” The
whole locality was lush green, right up to the Zoo at Byculla.
Dockyard Road on the East provided
proximity to the docks. Great Indian Peninsula (GIP) Railway on the West provided
access to the hinterland. Steam engine
operated textile mills sprang up in the area.
The locality was ideal to get cotton from Khandesh and Malwa and coal
from Jharia and Central Provinces, like Nagpur. Nearby Cotton Green was a lush
green place for huge markets dealing in cotton bales. Mill workers were housed
in chawls. Hindamata and Bharatmata cinema theatres came up in the locality, to
cater to the entertainment needs of the workers.
Energy needs of the textile mills,
railways, factories like Imperial Tobacco, Nimco Tiles and the up market clusters around the
Governor’s House prompted Tata Hydro-Electric Power Supply Co. Ltd to bring
electricity from the region’s first hydro-electric power station at Khopoli,
straight to Mumbai, by setting up a Receiving Station at Parel.
Dadasaheb Phalke and Ranjit Movietone
churned out movies for the masses. V. Shantaram shifted his operations from
Pune to Mumbai and set up his Raj Kamal Studios at Parel. Even today, an ultra
modern housing complex, set up in the studio compound, bears testimony to the
nostalgic memories of the memorable films made there, through a life size
statue of a girl, bending backwards and blowing a “tutari”, a trademark opening scene
of all Shantaram’s memorable movies.
Since there is neither a garden nor a red
structure in the area, one may wonder where did Lal Baug get its name. I suppose the wholesale market for red
chillies may have inspired the name.
If one wishes to see the grandeur of old
architecture and green foliages within their
compounds, one has to only look at the KEM Hospital, Wadia Hospitals and
their hostels. The hospitals sprang up
there, probably to serve the elite like the Governor and his staff as well as
the large population of mill workers. Sheth Gordhandas Sundardas, who made his
fortune at Cotton Green, donated funds to set up the G S Medical College.
The main road carried a tramway. Originally
for horse driven trams. Later electric trams plied there. To make way for
increasing traffic, the tramway was dismantled. It will now soon have a mono
rail traversing through it. This is the first mono rail of the country.
