When restoration projects and conservation architects need the specialists, who do they reach out to? In a city where heritage conservation is the need of the hour, Benita Fernando finds four individuals with niche expertise
Scultpor Vasudev Patka
Vasudev Patkar, Sculptor and plasterer
Two ladies in Mumbai have Vasudev Patkar to thank. Standing tall on the turrets of the Bombay High Court are the allegorical statues of Justice and Mercy. Today, both can boast of belonging to the newly-inscribed UNESCO World Heritage Site in Mumbai.
However, about 20 years ago, the statues needed a facelift. They had started to bear the brunt of cryptoflorescence — typical white patches that appear due to water-borne salts in masonry, which, if left unchecked, can break structures. Justice and Mercy were nearly 130 years old at that time, so they need attention urgently. Patkar is a sculptor, who worked with conservation architects Abha Narain Lambah and David Cardoz to restore the statues. “We had to climb to the top of the towers. It was adventurous,” says Patkar, 59.
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Brought the interiors of the Royal Opera House back to life. Pic/Suresh Karkera
Patkar graduated from the Sir JJ School of Art in 1987, following his sculptor father’s footsteps. “While I studied sculpting and moulding full-time, I also took part time courses in architecture, metal craft and fine art. All these skills have helped me in my work,” says the Shivaji Park resident. We can see his workmanship at the Royal Opera House, restored by Narain Lambah and her team in 2016.
The culture and entertainment venue, which first opened in 1912, used to have dainty boxes on the sides for VIP seating. These were demolished, and when the theatre was set to re-open after nearly 15 years, Patkar was brought in to bring the Baroque boxes back to life.
Patkar is also the man behind the maintenance for statues that dot the Oval Maidan area, such as that of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. “I love my restoration projects more as I do not want to see our heritage die,” he says.
Tehmi Ghadialy, Porcelain and glass restorer
Bonesetters and orthopaedic surgeons will relate well to what 74-year-old Tehmi Ghadialy does for a living. In a corner of the bedroom of her Marine Lines home, Ghadialy’s workstation is like a hospital waiting room for fine porcelain and glassware. A cracked flower-shaped vase and a broken bowl await their turns beside a tall vase that has just been restored.
Tehmi Ghadialy is an expert in the delicate art of restoring porcelain and glass objects. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
"Housekeepers, children and pets are our best friends," she jokes, when we ask her how these broken objects reach her. She turns the pages of a photo album, in which before-and-after pictures of restored objets d’art are arranged. “Many of these have been with families for a long time and people are very attached to them," she says. But, there are also those pieces that Ghadialy works on, just for the love of it. There is an instance of a tea cup that a boy bought as a Mother’s Day gift. We suspect that the child was more shattered than the broken cup. "He was in tears and I said I would repair it for him." Then, with a laugh, she shares, “Sometimes, I fall in love with the objects I restore and find it hard to part with them."
The last photo in the album is a resplendent Satsuma vase. Only, it’s in 175 pieces. The vase was restored by her father, Dady Ghadialy, whose craft the daughter now carries on. "My father started working as a teenager, at his family’s watch shop in Fort, Roger’s Watch and Co. He was self-taught and greatly skilled in repairing intricate objects,” says Ghadialy. “But, he never had to teach me how to restore porcelain. I learned it by just observing him," she adds, fondly.
Looking at the destroyed porcelain, jigsaw puzzles come to mind. Only, we must remember, that both Ghadialy and her late father did not have pictures of the original intact objects to compare with. Even surgeons, for that matter, have a blueprint of the human body. “I once had to restore a statuette whose face had shattered. It was nearly in shards. I had to figure which parts of the face the pieces corresponded to, and then work over the finished face. I have to think a lot and talk to the owners in order to understand what the original object would have looked like,” she says, pointing to photographic evidence. The porcelain maiden has a fine nose job, we think, thanks to Ghadialy.
Mohammed Ibrahim Damani, Antique clock repairer
as Mohammed Ibrahim Damani opens the door of Sassoon Dock’s two-face clock tower, he says, “I am not the kind of person who can deal with kit-kit and permissions. You can’t be waiting for an hour to get the key, and then wait for another hour to return it to officials. I prefer to have the keys to the clocks I am working on.”
Mohammed Ibrahim Damani
Damani, a 72-year-old clock repairer, is one of the few of his kind left in the city. He knows how to expertly restore tower clocks, and Sassoon Dock is one such in his repertoire. As we climb the tower, our feet landing softly on its 147-year-old steps, Damani narrates how he came into this business. At 17, he worked with his father at Eastern Watch Co. in Fort. “One day, my father asked me to repair the Sassoon clock or never come home. That was the first time I repaired it,” he says, his memory a little fuzzy on the date.
The Sassoon Dock clock, like several others in the city, needs regular maintenance, and as it happened, it stopped for good. Damani doesn’t remember when it stopped ticking again, for in those years he was working in Kuwait, repairing toasters. In 2014, the Mumbai Port Trust commissioned him to repair its iconic timepiece that has 42 parts.
Damani in the belfry of Sassoon Dock's clock tower (right). Pics/Bipin Kokate
Damani has also been sought out for other tower clocks in the city, such as St Thomas Cathedral, Magen David Synagogue and Christ Church. “I often look at them, and say, “Inshallah! I shall make the bells ring again,” he tells us as he agilely moves around the clock’s machinery in the belfry. Overhead, hangs a blue-grey bell, cast by John Warner and Sons, a famous bell foundry in the UK. He points to the green pendulum and the two weights that are suspended from the machinery. “These weights will reach the first floor through the week. Every Wednesday, the clock has to be wound up, and the weights will ascend. That’s the way to maintain it,” he explains. He then checks his mobile phone for the time — he doesn’t wear a watch — and says, “Let’s wait for 20 minutes for the clock to strike.”
Back outdoors, Damani confesses he has his eyes set on the Rajabai Clock Tower. Its mechanism, far more complex than others, fascinates him, and the keys to that tower is something he’d love to possess. Will his children continue his trade? “I don’t have children. I am looking to marry but no woman signs up for me,” he says, wistfully. It’s four minutes past noon, and Sassoon Dock’s bell rings. Damani notes the delay. “If I hold the pendulum steady for four minutes, then the clock will be perfect,” he says, his job far from done.
Swati Chandgadkar, Stained glass restorer
From working with words to playing with light, Swati Chandgadkar has seen it all. In 1995, while she was a faculty member at Ruia College, teaching English literature, she did a short course at a studio in the USA. “I realised this was my vocation and changed my career to become a stained glass artist,” writes Chandgadkar, from Singapore, where she is on a work visit.
Chandgadkar (centre) inspecting a stained glass window. Pics/The glass studio
Her interest in stained glass, however, dates back even further. It was sparked by a trip to Europe as a college student. “I was struck by the immensity of medieval stained glass windows where the figure of Christ at a height of more than 100ft from the ground was so distinctive in features and expression,” says the 61-year-old. The memory from long ago is what led her to employ the same method while fabricating life-size figures of eight goddess in the Jivdani Mata Temple in Virar.
“What’s most exciting about stained glass is that it’s ‘kinetic’, and looks different in different phases of the day. It is also the perfect marriage of art and craft, in that it’s structural — hence, called a window — and imbibes design,” she says. Her expertise in this niche area has made Chandgadkar a noted name in architectural restoration. Through her label The Glass Studio, she has restored stained glass windows in the Afghan Memorial Church, St Thomas Cathedral, The Royal Bombay Yacht Club and Shri Chandra Bhagwan Jain Temple. It would seem that stained glass, and light, have united the many spiritual sites in the city.
The altar windows of St Thomas Cathedral, restored by Chandgadkar in 2003
Currently, Chandgadkar is working on the century-old stained glass windows of the Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, known locally as The Blue Synagogue, in Kala Ghoda. These windows, imported from England by the Sassoon family, depict Jewish imagery, such as pears and pomegranates. “They are in a fairly good state, except that they have become victims of aging and pollution. They will need to be dismantled and fortified,” she explains, adding, “One must understand how much to restore within a window. There is a tendency to over-restore. I am more of a purist.”
Chandgadkar has also worked on several secular historic buildings. In 2007, she was invited by the Preservation of Monuments Board, Singapore, to make a report on stained glass in 10 of their National Museums, and to write the technical guidelines for the conservation of stained glass windows. But ask her about her most challenging project so far, and she picks Juma Masjid in Kalbadevi. “I had to design and make new windows for an old, historic mosque, for which I needed to study calligraphy, design, and understand the structure’s adaptation in the medium of stained glass."
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