So, a walk through Byculla with kids was something I took on only so that I could, along with the children, discover if there was anything interesting at all in the area other than Rani Baug, the Botanical Garden and the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum (BDL)
History walk in Byculla (Outdoors)
Byculla to me meant my father heading there once a week, taking a bus all the way from Chembur, to buy vegetables. Over the years, it was a place I passed by, tried to avoid and prayed never to get stuck in. So, a walk through Byculla with kids was something I took on only so that I could, along with the children, discover if there was anything interesting at all in the area other than Rani Baug, the Botanical Garden and the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum (BDL).
We started at the BDL, because how can we not? Mumbai's oldest museum that was built to be one, it was a place the British envisioned to be the seat of high living and culture. To understand Byculla and to figure how it happens to have majestic structures, and broad roads juxtaposed with chawls and factories, one has to understand a bit of Mumbai history and colonial planning.
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Gloria days
The kids have been to Rani Baug, and been inside BDL many times over. So even though that is where we started, we walked around the place, watching other groups of people entering the gates, and re-examined the garden with statues of former colonial officials and the queen, which still houses a functional gas lamp as well as the 6th century Elephanta elephant that was reassembled and has found its resting place here.
We then headed to Gloria Church, where we were told how Byculla was an extension of Mazagaon, one of the prominent seven islands, which trailed into marshland and low-lying flats in low tide that were reclaimed and converted into Byculla. This was followed by the construction of the Bellasis Road Causeway in 1793. With everything being set for them, Europeans started moving here and the famous Byculla Club was opened in 1833.
Gloria Church, which is where the famous scene from Amar Akbar Anthony had been shot, is not how it originally looked. The original Gloria Church, Nossa Senhora da Glória, a Franciscan church, was built in 1632 at the foot of the Mazagaon hill, funded by the De Souza e Lima family, who owned the Mazagaon island, which they procured from the King of Portugal in 1572. The old structure was demolished in 1911 and the present one, built at Byculla, was opened in 1913.
From there, we walked to Masina Hospital, Mumbai's first private hospital, looking at it from the outside, admiring the sprawling lawns where the house of Sir David Sassoon once stood. The first thing we notice is that the railing is the same as the one outside the Gloria Church. From Masina Hospital, we moved to look at the one-time home of Sir Premchand Roychand, a merchant from Surat who settled in Mumbai and was best known as Cotton King (the Rajabai Tower in Fort, we tell the kids, is named after his mother). The bungalow, which was called Premodayan, became Regina Pacis Convent, an orphanage and school for destitute girls.
Shopping for memories
When the mills came into Bombay, it brought a sub-culture along with it and suddenly, it was not cool to live in Byculla. The rich upped and left for Malabar Hill. We walked around looking at the chawls, or living quarters made for the labourers needed to keep the factories functioning. We spot the Regal Restaurant and Bakery and Byculla Restaurant and Bakery, two of the city's oldest Irani restaurants, built on either side of Byculla, east and west. We soak in the busyness of a typical Irani restaurant with its checked floor tiles, vintage furniture and signage, with the Regal Pharmacy nearby.
We head left to Byculla station, which looks and feels a lot like Bandra railway station. The Byculla market is our last halt. It is noon, and the marketplace is empty. We stand on the stone floor and I try to imagine my father bargaining to buy vegetables 35 years ago, when this was the city's largest wholesale market for vegetables. Not many know that when a young Dalit wanted to get married and no one would give him a hall to do so, the vendors gave him a stall to hold his wedding. Today, the place where Lokmanya Tilak was once felicitated will soon be torn down soon and will make way for redevelopment.
Good to kow
. Read up about the place to make it exciting for kids, or take your kids with groups that conduct such walks.
. Ensure kids wear caps and carry drinking water. £Prep them for a long stroll.
Fact file
Best for: Older girls and boys aged 10 years and above. We were with eight-year-old Dhruv who survived the two-hour 20-minute walk and was suitably curious throughout.
How to reach: Take the train to Byculla. On the Harbour line, Dockyard Road station is close.
Timings: The BDL Museum gates open at 9.30 am. Unless you want to enter the museum premise, you can start early.
Budget: None
Food: If the kids are okay, it will add to the experience to buy the freshest paav from Byculla Restaurant and Bakery or sit inside Regal for their version of eggs or mutton pattice.
Water: Best to carry your own
Rest Room facilities: Yes, at BDL Museum.
Parent Poll: There is no other way to show kids the history of the city than by walking around in places.
Rating: ****
Kids' Poll: Kids could choose to vote out of the walk in an hour, but they were wordless and rivetted two hours later.
Rating: ****
What's Good: The lanes with wooden banisters, datoon sellers, and ear wax cleaners.
What's Not So Good: The crowd. Without a guided tour, the place can get overwhelming.
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