Meher Marfatia: The other Gandhis

It has to be one of my favourite roads After all I walked a fair stretch of Princess Street every morning for five years on my way to college from Marine Lines station Pound the same pavements daily slip under creakily cranked up awnings to resist rain and you discover the most magical details Who cared about being late for lectures I was riveted by this road mdash vital vibrant and thrumming with traffic chaos Lined by archaic store fronts embellished with typography now only half etched on fading facades Elegant 19th century architecture everywhere struggling to be seen through thickheaped grot and grimeA view of Delhi Art Gallery which stands at the corner of VB Gandhi Marg and Rope Walk Lane In 1948 Dr Vithal Balkrishna Gandhi became a municipal corporator and was involved in the takeover of BEST from the British PicsBipin KokateBreathing ineffable romance beneath the ricketiest roofs Princess Street continues to rule with a slew of iconic signage Chemould Frames Parsi Dairy Farm and Bombays bestknown homoeopathy dispensaries beside a glut of specialist shops hawking chemicals surgical instruments lab glassware diesel and electric generators To decongest this even then crowded area after the 1803 bubonic plague the City Improvement Trust demolished a row of buildings which widened this road The Gothicstyle Indian Art Studio was a visual marker no future construction could go further than it at the intersection of Princess Street and KalbadeviNoticing the new name for this long strip linking the Queens Necklace with Crawford Market was revelatory mdash Shamaldas Gandhi Marg The son of Anandlal Amritlal and grandnephew of the Mahatma Shamaldas Gandhi 19131998 with both his birth and death in South Africa uniquely supported the fight for freedom When the princely states chose between accession to India or Pakistan the nawab of Junagadh opted for Pakistan but the majority opposed his decision Shamaldas won Junagadh with a peoples agitation led by a force called Arzi Hukumat Temporary Government on November 9 1947right Princess Street was renamed after Shamaldas Gandhi who made an unusual contribution to free India and to the administration of JunagadhIn an interview to journalist Sheela Bhatt LK Advani described how home minister Sardar Patel was sent a telegram by Shamaldas and SN Bhutto diwan of Junagadh and father of ZA Bhutto former prime minister of Pakistan When news reached from Bhutto diwan of the nawab that the Indian army had been invited into Junagadh Patels face lit up Addressing members of the Congressled Junagadh Corporation among other citizens the Sardar dwelt on the day when the Nawab panicked and crossed the borderAn impressive statesman Shamaldas formed a semi government of sorts in Junagadh with a council headed by himself as chief minister and Dayashankar Dave and Pushpaben Mehta as cabinet ministers Junagadh remained a centrally administered province till 1949 when it merged with Saurashtra as part of the Indian Union After the Mahagujarat Andolan and Samyukta Maharashtra movement on May 1 1960 Dr Jivraj Mehta assumed office as the first chief minister of Gujarat stateAfter Modi Sorabji Vatcha Gandhi thought of setting up an agiary close to the pleasant stretch of Chowpatty he passed away in 1857 but his sons went ahead to realise his dream and the agiary was consecrated on February 8 1858About 20 minutes from St Xaviers College towards Kala Ghoda winds a path commemorating another illustrious Gandhi This lane behind Rhythm House is VB Gandhi Road in the heart of a tony part of town awash in fashion design hubs art galleries and swish cafes The narrow alley honouring Dr Vithal Balkrishna Gandhi 18961969 holds a heritage piece de resistance of the Jews who contributed so generously to Bombay mdash the 1884 Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue built in the classical revival tradition by the philanthropic Sassoon familyBorn to a vegetable vendor from the Vaishya Vani trading community of the Konkan Vithal Gandhi bravely beat poverty to emerge an admired social reformer political figure and selfmade businessman He came to be called the American Gandhi because he returned to serve the masses following education abroad Schooling in Ratnagiri he finished matriculation in Bombay and attended Wilson College to which he would walk from his Girgaum home unable to afford the cheapest tram fare He funded his fees by tutoring fellow students of a generation that was exhorted Rise up young India you are inferior to none by communist sympathiser Amrit Dange and intellectuals like Ashok Mehta who went on to chair the Praja Socialist PartyPitched into the nationalist struggle Chowpatty beach became a hub of revolutionary meetings and exchange of radical views Vithal played an editorial role at Young India the journal founded by Lala Lajpat Rai who saw spark and promise in him On Lalajis advice he sailed off in 1920 on the steamship Adriatic for a Masters degree in economics at Columbia UniversityBack in the country Vithal stayed close to some of its greatest patriots even as he embarked on a venture dealing in medical products and radio accessories It became established as one of the countrys earliest corporations American Products Company Ltd He was gifted a watch inscribed by his US creditors appreciative of his ethical repaying of every single penny in spite of the Great Depression An entrepreneur with his vision alone could finally steer his pharmaceutical company USV to pioneering heights in diabetes treatment and ranked among the top 20 in the industryAs a municipal corporator Vithal was actively involved in the 1948 takeover of BEST from the British and execution of the State Transport networks Voted mayor of Bombay and then Member of Parliament he proved pivotal to implementing several laws and practices we take for granted today A charming contribution he made to the life of the common man was the idea that our taxis be painted black topped with yellow mdash the ubiquitous kaali peeli selected for yellow being an easily spotted colour and black for low maintenance His suggestion caught Nehrus fancy immediately And the rest is travel historyMore than a century before VB Gandhi and his comrades congregated at Chowpatty with such fervour Modi Sorabji Vatcha Gandhi 17781857 was inspired by balmy breezes wafting over exactly those salubrious sands Surveying the pleasant scene one evening he announced to friends gathered that he intended to build a place of worship close to these pleasant acresI sit in a cool inner hall of the Vatcha Gandhi Agiary on Hughes Road with its panthak head priest Ervad Aspandiar Rustomji Dadachanji The fragrance of sandalwood wafts in sweet waves reaching the garden walls outside while he kindly reads to me from a notepad with jottings he has written in Gujarati about the benefactor of this fire templeThe legacy of Bombays fire temples parallels the catapulting of the city as Indias financial centre Those were the days in which successful sethias and merchants gave unstintingly back to a city that had earned them their fortune Ship chandler and gun carriage factory manufacturer Sorabji was no exception Though he lost little time in initiating the construction Sorabji passed away in the year of the first war of Independence His three sons decided to go ahead with realising his dream and the agiary was completed and consecrated on February 8 1858Community historian Marzban Giara shares that Sorabji was the greatgreatgrandson of Modi Hirji Vatcha Gandhi from Surat who bequeathed the Zoroastrians of Bombay their first opentothesky dakhma or Tower of Silence to dispose the dead This was in 1672 at the Doongerwadi whose green grounds slope trellises across the street from where Hirjis descendant was to later build the Vatcha Gandhi Agiary Five more dakhmas were added till 1800 in those jungles of roaming hyenas and jackals where peacocks still dance at dawn to the sonorous chant of fourthday uthamna prayersA year after introducing the dakhma Hirji had actually also constructed the citys earliest agiary at Fort It was reduced to rubble by the terrible fire of February 1803 which destroyed over onethird of Bombays structures By default another agiary built behind Flora Fountain in June 1709 mdash Banaji Limji Agiary mdash is now the oldest surviving Dubbed Kote ni Agiary or fire temple of the Fort it is often called Bakri Agiary as goats always gently graze in the courtyard hereAuthorpublisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay You can reach her at mehermarfatiagmailcom