Walk around Fort to read the city’s history and dive into its culture through signage
Pic/Pradeep Dhivar
Walk around the many lanes of what used to be Bombay’s Fort St. George and you’ll find a piece of history in every cranny. Sometimes it’s upfront, in bold type.
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Signage can say a lot about a city, its history and people. At our first stop on the Fort Bazaar Type Walk, we stand outside an English night school in Bohra Bazaar and look up at the sign board. It reads in Kannada, Hindi and English. A poster on the wall is in English, Hindi, Marathi, and Gujarati. This indicates that these were the languages of the bazaar, spoken by migrant workers. That’s our first lesson on the walk: Signs speak of a city’s culture and history.
Few steps away, an Udupi welcomes patrons with a large sign that says “South Indian” in English, but reads “Andhra Bojanalayam” in Telugu, giving away which state’s specialities one can expect. “To communicate,” says a fellow walker when custom type designer Tanya George, who conducts the walk, asks us the purpose of signs. Signboards and signs can tell you many things: Name, what the place sells, the address, the audience, and often the correct pronunciation too. For instance, how would you read “Male Pan Shop?” An additional signboard in Devanagari tells us it’s “maa-lay”.
Signboards and signs can tell you many things: Name, what the place sells, the address, the audience, and often the correct pronunciation too. PIC COURTESY/TANYA GEORGE
Adding a Marathi signboard has been a mandate in the city for years, and Tanya points out how bilingual signboards make navigation easier for non-English readers. That’s why it’s disheartening to see French luxury brand Hermes showroom’s Devanagari signage read “hair-mes”, instead of “air-mes”.
On the way to the RBI headquarters from Bohra Bazaar, we stop near the Maneckji Seth Agiary Parsi Mandir to look at Cuneiform, an ancient Mesopotamian and Persian script which is one of the earliest forms of writing. The inscription was brought to Mumbai from Iran and as Tanya reads the translation, we learn that it was originally from a tablet. Cuneiform was written on clay.
Mumbai’s typography has several lessons. Throughout the walk, Tanya points out grammatical errors, incorrect Hindi and Marathi matras, stylised fonts, shadow signs, and even ligature–a set of two or more characters that are designed to look harmonious. We spot this on the plaque outside St. Thomas’ Cathedral, where the “H” and “E” in the “Cathedral” share a stroke. Other lessons include the importance of typography, displayed by art deco buildings. The architectural lettering often features the name of the building, but Tanya says, “It is a great way to protect your legacy.”
Our last stops include two iconic buildings: the Knesset Eliyahoo Synagogue and Rhythm House in Kala Ghoda. Both of which not only have history, but also an iconic colour (the blue of the synagogue) and are a landmark (the curved corner of Rhythm House), but also have noteworthy lettering. A quote in Hebrew at the synagogue’s gateway, welcomes worshipers. And which true-blue Mumbaikar wouldn’t recognise how each alphabet of the Rhythm House is packed a separate red box?
WHAT: Fort Bazaar Type Walk by Tanya George
WHERE: Bohra Bazaar, Fort
WHEN: 7:30 to 9:30 AM, Saturday June 25
PRICE: Rs 850
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