Where Talpade outdid the Wright brothers

Get an allaccess rewind ticket to Mumbais most intriguing native town trinity Bhuleshwar Girgaum and Malabar Hill courtesy Jagdish Gandhis justreleased booku00a0 Jagdish Gandhi must have had a pretty interesting childhood Negotiating the lanes and gullies of Bhuleshwar Girgaum and Malabar Hill as a school kid was a favourite past time of this traditional medicine specialist naturalist and environmentalist Put me in any place here and I can find my way out says the 70 yearold when asked about his familiarity with these parts A girls school operating in Jagannath Shankar Seths residential complex Sarojini Naidu flags off the first Indian pilot Purushottam Meghji Kabali 1930 Mumbadevi Temple ComplexClearly this ease is reflected in his book A Tale of Three Native Towns Bhuleshwar Girgaum and Malabar Hill While the book was a sevenyear effort the discoveries within this 172pager come to life thanks to over a 100 rare sepiatoned photographs The heritage activist has in the past fought the authorities to ensure Banganga Tank and Walsingham Girls High School at Walkeshwar remained protected monuments PAST PERFECTMy book crisscrosses generations communities cultures educational institutions temples reform movements and Indias freedom struggle I was tempted to add more native towns Mazgaon Parel Sewri Lalbaug but dropped the idea since it was too large a canvas to capture in one book he confesses Gandhi is worried that todays generation might forget the citys rich past Someone needs to pick up the threads Ive tried to weave one thread with this book Compulsions of time stop us from noticing our surroundings Im hopeful this book will create an impression he says Horsedrawn tram cars at Tambakanta The Banganga precinct Tambakanta in the 1880sLeaf through the book and theres enough to please every kind of Mumbaiphile from the archivist and the factfinder to the spiritually inclined However dont expect a lavish coffee table feel Textbookish in appearance and minus breakers like sub headings and fact boxes it has no breathing space The texttoimage balance is poor Selfpublished though it is the reader sure deserved a crisper read and appealing book design MATTERS OF THE STATEGandhi may have faced many challenges during research yet he considers the State not the people as the biggest culprit The State is the greatest plunderer of our heritage the common man doesnt have the time Simple folk on the street willingly helped wherever I went he recollectsDifficult as it was weve zeroed in on 10 intriguing facts about these native towns that are cool reminders of the glory days of aamchi Mumbai Walkeshwar Road overlooking Malabar Hill ColabaWarden Road bus in the 1920s Dhobi Talao junction The circled spot is where Metro Cinema stands today1 Mumbadevi Temple was originally situated outside the Bazar Gate of the old Fort of Bombay roughly where CST stands today In 1766 it was shifted to its present site near Zaveri Bazar built by local jeweller Pandurang Sonar 2 Tambakanta gets its name from people of the Twashta Kansar Samaj belonging to the ethnic Maharashtrian stock who were metal workers Due to their innate knowledge of the molecular structure of metals they were readily absorbed into the Government Mint by the British 3 Built in 1938 the Cotton Exchange Building in Kalbadevi was the earliest and largest facility for forward cotton trading in the world 4 Of the ayurvedic operators in Bhuleshwar GoraGandhis specialised in offwhite bhasmas of mineral origin KalaGandhis concentrated on black bhasmas of metal origin while KadwaGandhis were experts in making plantbased potions and bittertasting churnas u00a05 Collectively the GirgaumKalbadevi area had the largest number of photo studios in undivided India 6 Despite limited funds Shivalkar Talpade created a mechanical contraption that went airborne from a sand strip of Girgaum Chowpatty in 1895 Called Marut Sakha it reached an altitude of 1500 ft much before the Wright Brothers historic flight 7 A printing press was set up in the city to satiate the popularity of artist Raja Ravi Vermas works among urban art connoisseurs It even prompted Ravi Verma to live and work out of Gamdevi for a while u00a08 The Banganga precinct is one of the oldest surviving continuous settlements in Mumbai dating back to 8 ADu00a09 Malabar Hill was named so in the early days of British rule as it housed a military battery to foil a fleet of pirates operating from Malabar who would lie in wait to attack commercial vessels 10 The MalabarCumbala Hills were tropical forests which had a good population of wild animals like snakes pythons monkeys and the elusive tiger A Tale of Three Native Towns Bhuleshwar Girgaum and Malabar Hill by Jayesh Gandhi Rs 450 Available at leading bookstores Author Jagdish Gandhi on Mumbais water bodiesMumbai had as many as 750 water bodies including tanks wells ponds during the days of the Raj Today barely 4045 remain and face the risk of being filled in for commercial useBael zindabadBefore 1864 when the Victoria appeared the only means of public transport on Mumbais streets were bullockdrawn vehicles alternatively called Sighram Bailgadi or Reckla depending on the shape and utility of the vehicle