04 April,2021 07:00 AM IST | Mumbai | Meher Marfatia
Brothers Jayasinh and Kishore Mariwala with Jingo outside Sudha Kunj, their family house that is a Haji Ali landmark since the late 1930s. Pic/Shadab Khan
The 18th century saw the East India Company in Bombay battle relentlessly surging seawaters. Stone piles dumped by the boatload into Worli creek as bolster embankments kept collapsing. Until, according to a narrative in Marathi bakhar literature, engineer Ramji Shivji Prabhu dreamt the goddesses Mahalaxmi, Mahakali and Mahasaraswati urged him to discover their submerged idols to install at a shrine. He followed instructions. The wall held strong.
That was Hornby Vellard, completed under Governor William Hornby in 1784. Subsequent causeways recontoured the "city" of seven islets. Bunding the "Great Breach" between Bombay and Worli islands partially christened Breach Candy.
A small arch greets visitors to Mahalaxmi Mandir. With Corinthian pillars supporting a clock, it bears the phrase "1905: Prince's Triumphal Arch". Priests dispense prasad around the picturesque structure to devotees of every faith.
Stories swirl about pristine pearly Haji Ali mosque and tomb. Over five centuries ago, the merchant Haji Ali Shah Bukhari renounced riches after a Haj pilgrimage, ending his days among rocks in this bay. Some claim he died en route back from Mecca. Attached to the body floating toward Bombay, a note asked that his remains be buried at the spot they were found.
"Haji Ali maidan adjoined the racecourse north and current traffic junction south. A portion was Willingdon golf range, where we picked up tees as kids," recollects Jayasinh Mariwala. His brother Kishore says Bodyguard Lane, between the two golf course sections, led to stables with an entrance for the Mounted Guards. The RTO occupies it today.
The siblings sit on a sunny patio of Sudha Kunj, the sole building which furniture king Bhagwandas Morarji Kamdar designed. Named for the youngest of industrialist Vallabhdas Mariwala's 10 children, the raintree-shielded Art Deco ancestral seat has, since 1937, housed four generations of the family pioneering trusted household products like Parachute Oil.
In 1871, Jayasinh and Kishore's grandfather, Kanji Morarji Mariwala of Vinzan village in Kutch, sailed in a dhow to Bombay shores pluckily at just 13. Sleeping at the docks, he stitched jute bags and weighed cotton at Sewri for a Bhatia boss. Joined by his brother Vasanji, he hit work from a hole-in-the-wall operation at Masjid Bunder. Their company, Kanji Khetsi, traded Kerala spices like ginger and pepper - explaining the family name.
"Our father Vallabhdas was an aesthete and academically brilliant. Most Kutchi boys only matriculated and married. Studying further, he ensured we did too, with a certain simplicity, yet sophistication," Kishore shares. The Mariwala children rode Bus B-1 to New Era School. "Hearing âQuit India' cries that August 1942 day, I jumped from my classroom window into Gowalia Tank maidan thick with teargas," says Jayasinh. "Our parents always wore khaddar," Kishore adds.
Jagged metal lettering of the words "Silver" and "Foil" straddles a stylised lightning bolt in this "electric" nameplate. Pics courtesy Art Deco Mumbai
Facing Sudha Kunj, where Shiv Tirth is, stood the Maharaja of Kolhapur's palace. Nestled close was the Rewa Maharaja's, presently Rewa Apartments. "A German dermatologist in a cottage there, supposedly a spy, was taken POW in World War II," says Jayasinh.
The Mariwalas purchased their property from the Gamadias. Opposite rose glitzy-for-the-'70s Heera Panna Arcade. The shopping centre partly replaced land on which, from the late 1700s, lay the weekend retreat of the family rendering these Cumballa Hill acres famous. Gamadia House, sprawled majestic in woods across originally an approximate 60 acres.
"My brother Kooverji and I were born in Gamadia House," says Faridoon Gamadia, great-grandson of Nowrosji Gamadia, who cemented the clan's entrepreneurial and philanthropic prominence. "Neither Carmichael Road, nor Pedder Road existed. They were carved out of acquired jungle space where foxes and jackals howled in packs."
Though Nowrosji's great-grandfather, Jamshedji Bhimji of Surat, arrived in Bombay in 1720, it was visionary Nowrosji under whom Gamadia Factories flourished at cotton ginning and pressing, with export interests. Director of multiple companies, co-founder of Indian Mercantile Insurance and the Bombay Merchant Bank, Nowrosji was a municipal councillor, Bombay Port Trust and Parsi Punchayet trustee, and management board member of the Bombay Improvement Trust and Tata Institute of Science in Bangalore.
"Institutions we donated to are Bai MN Gamadia Girls High School (honouring Nowrosji's wife Maneckbai) on Princess Street, the BN Gamadia Technical School and Hunnarshala, and Gamadia Colony in Tardeo, contributed by our grand-aunt Navajbai," says Faridoon.
A path linking "Gamadia forest" to the sea was needed. Up came Navroji Gamadia Road (Nowrosji's grandson Navroji, Kooverji and Faridoon's father, changed the spelling), rowed with villas in the prettiest gardens. Along its edges, Arthur's Seat became White House, Condor House is Tirupati Apartments, Johnson Lodge is Datta Prasad. Rylestone, off Carmichael Road, alone survives in earliest avatar.
Claude Batley's Deco drawings swerved here from standard layouts, creating White House and Gold Croft's duplexes in London terrace house style. Currimbhoy Manor by Sykes, Patkar & Divecha initially belonged to textile magnate Sir Currimbhoy Ebrahim. With 13 thriving mills offering public dividends up to 50 per cent, he was declared the wealthiest Indian in 1920. Twenty-two years on, mirroring the idealist mood of the times, Mehboob Khan's classic, Roti, featured the same building in a song condemning capitalism.
Flagging off the road like Currimbhoy Manor is curvilinear-fronted Krishnabad, hosting Ever Ready Cleaners since 1942. Beside it, the clothing showroom, All, used to be the grocery Rex Stores, then Great Eastern Stores, before transforming to the Chinese eatery Chung Fa.
Kais Rahimtulla, from Gold Cornet building, points where a popular video parlour ran in a Krishnabad garage - "We enjoyed flipper football there, when we weren't skating full speed on the street slope or playing cricket." Boys jumped low walls separating Gold Cornet from Silver Foil, respectively built by brothers Ghulam Hussain and Vali Mohammad Sonavala. Art Deco Mumbai's archive notes Silver Foil's projecting balconies and continuous chhajjas exemplify the appeal of reinforced concrete as a rampantly explored '30s material.
"Messed up parking, cut trees and all, this is where it's been for me," says musician Farhad Wadia from Austin, Texas, who started I-Rock, the festival upping the ante for Indie bands. Passersby stopped outside his street-level Sneh Sadan home blasting decibel-defying beats. "Cantankerous neighbours complained to Gamdevi Police Station cops who'd mutter âTu waapas aaya?' each time they saw me, which was often." Hearing Rock Machine and Indus Creed to Grammy-winning Paul Oakenfold, crowds thronged when Wadia welcomed Amitabh Bachchan at seven one morning to voice Mahesh Mathai's Bhopal Express.
Elegant Mehra Vakil taught speech and drama in Alcazar, its plainness belying any Moorish grandeur the name implies. Kushere Pilling says, "Plays my mother directed were rehearsed in the living room. Practices for The Unknown Soldier and His Wife were lively with âKill him' sort of shouting in battle scenes. A neighbour came asking, âMrs Vakil, you alright?' Embarrassed, she apologised, but knew real calls for help from our flat might now be ignored!"
Dolat Doongaji opened Activity High School at the top of the road in 1968, 15 years after New Activity School on Hughes Road. She authored several children's books like A Coat for Oonee and the wonderfully retold Panchatantra Tales. Her twin daughters, educationists Hutoxi Boman and Hira Bhesania, live in pergola-crowned Coolshanagh, conceived tall for the mid-'50s by an Irish architect. The Gaelic-root translation of Cuil Seannach is "hill of the fox".
Glowingly maintained Mohini Mahal, associated with the Bangurs of Graphite India Ltd, is a hat tip to the Maharaja of Morvi's first wife Mohini Devi. Beside this haveli-esque mansion announcing Gamadia Cross Lane are self-confessed recluses in Kejriwal House. "Ours is Bombay's best strip," says Anjan Kejriwal. His father Deviprasad and uncle Hiralal settled in 1956 on this plot also belonging to the Morvi royal.
Within the little lane is Datta Prasad, built by Prataprao Dattajirao Chowgule in the '60s. His daughter Nandita recalls accompanying him to the Walkeshwar studio of Russian designer Primakoff as their building took shape. Radiologist Rajeev Kothari from next-door Mount Eminence flew model radio-control planes at the racecourse with Amos Radian, the suave Consul General of Israel, when he was a Datta Prasad resident in the '80s.
Facing Mount Eminence, the building Waves was once Bennett Villa, where Bhikhalal Shah lived with 27 cocker spaniels and six boxers. He established Collins & Co. in 1943, the country's first to manufacture gold-plated, stretchable watch straps for luxury labels including Omega, a legacy his son Robin extended with Bentex.
Valentina replaced Styleman House, renamed Chandra Niwas while it was home to broker Chandulal Shivlal who started Chandra Weaving Works in Ahmedabad. On the ground floor was Roy Hawkins, head of Oxford University Press. Retiring to the UK, he missed Bombay friends like the Progressive Artists and IPTA actors, so soon returned for good.
Eastward from Navroji Gamadia Road lies Byramji Gamadia Road (Byramji was Nowroji's eldest son), winding up from Pedder Road to Carmichael Road. After 1872, the government acquired land to build Pedder Road, dividing the estate. With a few more acres procured in 1918, handsome official bungalows and consulates graced Carmichael Road. That's another story.
Author-publisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay. Reach her at meher.marfatia@mid-day.com/www.mehermarfatia.com
