A talk this week will discuss one man’s search for an island city that was, amid fear that this colonial entrepôt will soon give way to ‘development’
Christ Church
You walk down a narrow sunlit lane lined by gable-roofed houses in a Bombay gaothan. Bombay, not Mumbai. You pause and soak in the marvels of time. You might even admire a Portuguese-style street square and happen to exclaim, “What a picture-postcard hamlet!” On another day, the typical font on a tailoring shop nameplate in Mazagaon can catch your eye.
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The city is speckled with colonial symbols
If those are the sorts of things you happen to notice, an upcoming talk arranged by The Museum Society of Mumbai and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya is meant for you. Bombay Rambles–Stumbling on Some Hidden Aspects of our City is a lecture by Dr Jehangir Sorabjee, son of late solicitor general Soli Sorabjee, a physician and professor of medicine, who treats photography as a serious hobby. He tells us that photographing neglected structures and signages is part of his personal quest to preserve a past rich in antiquity. “We are losing these unassuming carvings every day. Some of the places I have documented don’t exist anymore and reliving the few tangible treasures we have is essential,” he adds.
King of Iran Restaurant at Byculla
The pictures that will be screened at the lecture recount the shifting timelines. Sorabjee underlines the need to seek unknown spaces to inevitably chance upon pieces of historical value. “I wander through Mandvi, Dongri or Byculla, and look for things that are aesthetically pleasing, with some colonial element to them. I will share such findings in my talk. My process varies. At times, I follow an old map and trace areas and monuments through it. Or, I look for a thematic or geographical format to be directed to something interesting,” the author of Above Bombay (2006), a collection of aerial pictures of Mumbai, explains.
Remnants of a synagogue in Rani Baug
Pointing at a photograph that frames Byculla’s King of Iran Restaurant in green, Sorabjee says, “Cafés have changed but their old names have remained. Isn’t that fascinating? There’s one named after Lord Irwin [Lord Irwin Bar and Restaurant in Marine Lines] and one named after Lord Brabourne [Brabourne Restaurant, opposite Khyani & Co. that’s now been taken down], for example. In my experience, things of the past don’t last; they fade out really quickly.” And wanting to hold on to fragments from days gone by, in memory at least, is part of human nature.
A part of the Khada Parsi statue
In one of Dr Sorabjee’s pictures, a woman rests her back against an extension of the Khada Parsi statue that’s now overshadowed by flyovers. “The edifice has been shunted into a lonely corner. It’s beautifully cast and carved, but the general public barely has any knowledge of it.”
On: November 23, 5.30 pm
Log on to: @museumsocietyofmumbai on Instagram
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