Maximum city, million tales

Gyan Prakash's Mumbai Fables arrests the imagination of the Mumbaiite and tempts out-of-towners to discover the city. From its Portuguese link, tabloids trysts, crime, cinema, and urban planning mishaps, each fable is a delightful chronicle about the city's life and times

(Top) Blitz Oct 24, 1959;u00a0 (below)BlitzDec 2, 1961

The news of the verdict was the first time that the case made the front page of the Times. But it was a different story with Blitz. Having already elevated the case as its front-page story for weeks, Blitz greeted the verdict with nine pages of what it called a pictorial record of the case and a bold, front-page headline: THREE SHOTS THAT SHOOK THE NATION."

Bang... Bang... Bang:u00a0-- Three shots ring out one by one in succession. The shrill crash of window panes is followed by a wild scream. The scene is the ultra-modernly furnished bedroom of a young Bombay businessman on the second floor of a palatial building called "Jeevan Jyoti"u00a0-- "the flame of Life."
A brief summary of the case was followed by a sympathetic profile of the naval officer, accompanied by his photograph in uniform. "Commander Kawas Maneckshaw Nanavati, exactly six feet tall, well built and handsome, has spent eighteen and half years of this thirty seven year old in the Navy." It went on to recount his training at the Royal Naval College in England, his war service, and Lord Mountbatten's recommendation that he be trained for service in aircraft carriers. In England, Nanavati met and fell in love with the "delicately built, attractive, blue-eyed, brunette Sylvie." After a month of courting, they were married in London and returned to India, where she bore him three children. He was promoted as the second in command of the Indian Navy's flagship, Mysore. Aboard the ship during his last time at sea, the "thought of reunion with his pretty wife and three lovely children and meeting his aged parents filled [ed] his mind. His mind was overjoyed at the prospect of a new highly coveted post."
But Nanavati's world came apart when Sylvia confessed her affair with Ahuja. He drove to the ship to get medicine for his sick dog. But instead, he ended up securing a revolver from the ship's stores. "I just wanted to shoot myself and I though I would do that by driving far, far away from my children." Then a sudden urge took him to Ahuja. In a rage, he entered Ahuja's bedroom, shouting, "You filthy swine," and questioned him about his intentions.

COLONIAL GOTHIC, Pgs 37-38
The king of the opium trade, however, was Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, whose name is ubiquitous in the city's public spaces. Few remember that the man whose name graces the famous art school Sir J. J. school of Art and the popular Sir J. J. Hospital earned his exalted place through drug trafficking. Nor is it often mentioned that the opium traffic was part of Britain's illustrious "civilizing mission" to uplift the natives through the taste of free trade. Jeejebhoy certainly enjoyed the taste of it. Born to a poor artisan family in Bombay in 1783, his rags-to-riches story is the stuff that has made up the Island City's mythic life as the city of gold. He grew up in Navsari, Gujarat, and returned to Bombay at the age of sixteen, after losing both parents in quick succession. For three years he worked at this uncle's shop, counting and selling empty bottles. He made his first trip to China in 1800 as an accounts clerk for another Parsi merchant. On his second voyage, he traveled as his uncle's partner. In 1805 his fourth voyage aboard the Brunswick was eventful. The French captured the ship in July on its way to China. After several months of adventures aboard the ship as it sailed to Ceylon (Sri Lanka,) Malagasy (Madagascar), and the Cape of Good Hope, Jeejebhoy finally made his way back to Calcutta in December on a Danish Vessel. This misadventure cost him dearlyu00a0-- the French confiscated his cargo and robbed him of his belongingsu00a0-- but it had one profitable outcome. Aboard the Brunswick, he met the ship's assistant surgeon, William Jardine, who, in partnership with James Matheson, would go on to found Jardine Matheson and Company in 1832. As this firm quickly became the dominant force in Canton, its principal supplier of opium turned out to be none other than Jardine's fellow captive on the Brunswick. Jeejebhoy had not let captivity and financial loss dampen his enthusiasm for the China trade. He made one final trip to Canton in 1807. Seven years later, he acquired the first of his fleet of seven ships and began chartering several more to service his expanding business. His wanderlust and determination paid off. The orphan from Navsari had become a merchant prince.

DREAMWORDS, Pgs 337-338
The clich ufffdd description of Dharavi as "Asia's largest slum" depicts the 175-hectare tract, housing eight hundred thousand people, as a place of misery and oppression. In the corporate and middle-class visions of Dharavi, it is an obstacle in Mumbai's path to achieving a "world-class status. It is for this reason that many critics in India accuse the Oscar-wining film Slumdog Millionaire of portraying Mumbai in a bad light. For them, the film is one more example of the West's obsession with poverty and wretchedness when it comes to representing India. In fact, the critics share with the film the vision of Dharavi as an abject slum, rather than a place where the poor live and work with imagination and enterprise.
Prior to the late nineteenth century, Dharavi was a swamp inhabited by the Koli fishing community. Fishing died out as the swamp was filled. Poor migrants moved in from different parts of India, making the land habitable. Their resourcefulness transformed Dharavi into a flourishing economy. The eighteen-year-old Shamsuddin, for example, traveled all the way from Tamil Nadu to Dharavi in 1948, looking for work. He worked initially in his uncle's rice-smuggling business, transporting the grain from the outskirts of the city to sell it at nearly ten times the original price. The rice business ended after a few years when his uncle moved back to the village and the cousins migrated to Pakistan. Shamsuddin survived by working first for a coal company and then a printing press. He got married, and the couple moved into a ten-by-ten room in a "settled chawl" in 1961. A little later, Hamid, a man from his native village, arrived in Dharavi and made him a proposition. "Give me space and I'll make chiki [sesame brittle]." Shamsuddin procured him a shack and went from shop to shop selling chiki and other snacks. When Hamid moved away to Calcutta, Shamsuddin and his wife took over the business. They learned how to make chiki, which he sold in cinemas every day, returning home late at night. They packaged it and named their product "A-1 chiki." It grew into a successful business employing twenty workers, who lived in the two-room chiki factory's loft.