26 April,2026 08:02 AM IST | Mumbai | Ashlesha Athavale
The first generation of Sahitya Sahawas kids celebrate Holi in the early 1990s. Spot Dr Niranjan Rajadhyaksha (executive director of Artha Global), Chaitanya Chinchlikar (VP Whistling Woods International), ace photographer Avinash Gowariker, Ajit Tendulkar (Sachin’s brother), and MNS leader Sunil Harshe
April 12 spelt the end of an era, when a majority of the members of Sahitya Sahawas, the iconic authors' housing society in Bandra East, voted for redevelopment. With this, nearly all societies on Madhusudan Kalelkar Marg have fallen to the pandemic of redevelopment.
Sahitya Sahawas was established in 1965 by the stalwarts of Marathi literature, Acharya Prahlad Keshav Atre and Anant Kanekar, for authors. This is perhaps the only such housing society of its kind in the country. The nine buildings (construction began in 1966) in the colony are named after well-known poems, plays, or forms of literature. The first generation of children to grow up here had the privilege of getting to know noted authors such as Vinda Karandikar, Dharmaveer Bharati, Arvind Gokhale, Shanta Shelke, MV and Vijaya Rajadhyaksha, RB Joshi, KJ Purohit, Dr Bal Phondke, Anuradha and Narayan Athawalay, Va Pu Kale, A K Priolkar, Dr Y D Phadke, Subhash Bhende, Madhusudan Kalelkar, M V Dhond, Me Pu Rege, Jayant Mehta, Keshav Meshram, Wa La Kulkarni, Ra Bha Patankar, Kru Ra Sawant, Chandrakant Bandiwadekar, Madhukar Toradmal, Girija Keer, and others. We residents can walk across to Rajadhyaksha kaku's house and ask to borrow her book, or call up Phondke kaka and seek his advice on something.
That's not the only transfer of âculture' here. There are also matters such as virjan samplay [the curd starter culture is over]; how many people can say they'll just go up to a Sahitya Akademi winner's house and borrow some?
Those who grew up here have either one or both parents who are authors. And spending our childhood here, amid other authors, was quite an experience. We became part of the authors' families. We saw them involved in crazy antics and got to observe their eccentricities first hand. We would read their articles in newspapers, where they battled unapologetically over politics or other issues, and then see them chat in the evening as if nothing had happened. We read their books and marvelled at their simplicity as they went about their daily lives. We saw them go buy vegetables, or fight over a parking space, or do a spot of carpentry in their flat's balcony.
To mention some of the memorable happenings involving our wordly neighbours, every summer before the monsoon, Bhau (Vinda Karandikar who went on to win the Dnyanpeeth Puraskar) would gather the colony kids and together they would clean up the gutters and a small canal that existed here. Stories about Bhau are legendary! Here's one. He would shout from his house on the fourth storey, to musicologist Ashok Ranade who lived across the colony on the fourth storey of another building: "Aho Ranade, answer the phone, I am calling you!"
A noted short story writer from here wrote to a newspaper once, complaining that a cricket ball had landed in his bathroom shattering a shampoo bottle. He blamed the colony kids. It is unclear if the batsman behind this was a certain Sachin Tendulkar!
Every stray creature, especially a cat or dog, who enters the colony, never leaves - it is so well looked after. Years ago, when such a colony dog was picked up by the BMC and all the kids started bawling en masse, my father rushed over and managed to get the canine back.
But even as we saw the eccentricities of the authors, we got life lessons from them. Gangadhar Gadgil, for instance, gave his old house help some money every month as pension. Bhau gave away all his award money to NGOs and institutions. Nearly all residents, including my parents, helped the family of the first watchman in the colony, and his wife who worked as a house help here. His eldest son became an LIC officer, and later bought a house in the colony.
Ramesh Tendulkar allowed an author friend's family to stay in his flat with his family for over a year until the construction of their building was completed in the colony.
We owe a great debt to Pu Ja Deoras who worked with the Haffkine Institute, for he is responsible for most of the greenery in the colony. This includes rare trees such as the kadamb, which the scholar, Durga Bhagwat, had once come to see.
In terrible times such as the riots after the Babri Masjid was brought down, many of the colony boys spent a few nights on the terraces, keeping a watch for trouble makers.
There is an unwritten rule among the doctors who grew up here - some of whom are Mumbai's top specialists - they never charge neighbours and are always available for any emergencies. They helped us a lot during the pandemic.
In the colony's 50th year, Shazia Gowariker, one of the colony's daughters-in-law, published a book by the women authors residing here. Kattyawarchya Gappa might also be the only book written by the residents of a housing colony.
There's something residents tell others about Sahitya Sahawas: we are possibly the only colony in India with 10 presidents of the Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan, three Sahitya Akademi award winners, four Sangeet Natak Akademi award winners, one Lok Sabha MP, one Rajya Sabha MP, one Padmashri winner, one Padma Vibhushan winner, and one Bharat Ratna. But we say this with pride, not pomposity.
Now, 60 years on, Sahitya Sahawas is seeing its third-generation residents. Sadly, most residents now want modern comforts over wordly delights. Maybe the name of the colony will be changed. The new jungle of towers could be called Sahitya Park, Pen Parkers, Sahitya Haven, SS 2.0, or who knows⦠may be Writers' Block⦠Even though by this time, most residents will not have anything to do with writing. Time will tell.
As for Sahitya Sahawas now, our home, I am grateful. Grateful for our houses, our neighbours, our garden, even the snakes that live here but have never hurt anyone, the many birds for their songs and beauty, the not-so-shy squirrels, the colony cats that sleep all day and play all night disturbing us, the colony dogs and so much more. I am grateful for all this that will one day be the past. Here's hoping the new Sahitya Sahawas will be as memorable.
61
No. of years the colony has existed
