My last column was titled Little Lane Lost. This one is literally Little Lane Loved. Garden Road, leading left off Colaba Causeway, is an outstanding example of local vigilance successfully improving the civic affairs and aesthetics of a neighbourhood. 

Executed along with the 1873-instituted Port Trust’s dock projects, the Apollo Bunder reclamation scheme, south of Fort, leased estates on which handsome three-to-four storey buildings rose by the mid-1930s. In a mix of architectural styles, these line parallel Colaba lanes joining the Apollo promenade from the Causeway.
 
Garden Road seems fortunate enough to be saved from going the way of many neglected gullies, thanks to a band of civic-minded senior citizens. They are impressively led by Gul Karanjia in Mody Mansion, at the intersection of Garden and BK Boman Behram Marg (Mereweather Road). Their carefully conceived measures have extended to appointing an efficient system of still functioning private security in the lane. The tap-thud of the patrolling night watchman’s stick was echoed by a second —Karanjia’s husband blowing a whistle. It expectedly got a lively answering toot from the chowkidar, to confirm he was awake.