When uttar met dakshin

Never the twain shall meethellip Among Rudyard Kiplingrsquos multiple misquoted lines this chant from The Ballad of East and West has the imperialist poet describe farflung cultures intertwined rather than estranged Something like the North BombaySoBo divide which accuses one vertical end of the city of knowing little about the other Herersquos a quartet of stories with common threads weaving together both owing to visionaries who cared to bequeath Bombay a collective futureThe link isnrsquot so obvious Take Colaba and Dadar for starters When the formerrsquos road signs announce Pasta Lanes you can be forgiven for dreaming of la bella Italiarsquos delectable dish But these four paths off the Causeway have zip to do with anything Italian Pasta Lanes 1 2 3 and 4 are a decidedly desi throwback to a philanthropic Kutchi Bhatia clanVile Parle Station owe their existence to Goculdas Tejpalrsquos familyldquoThe name of Sheth Goculdas Liladhur Pasta stands high on the list of those who upheld the fair fame of the City of Bombayrdquo reads the section on the stalwart in Representative Men of the Bombay Presidency Studying this rare volume with Pastarsquos greatgrandson I learnt that Goculdasrsquo ancestor Sheth Mohanjee reached here around 1855 to trade in cottonmdashldquoHe won the title of lsquopastarsquo or lsquoprincersquo on account of his generosity and this cognomen is borne by his descendantsrdquo Honouring the trust that the British invested in them Goculdas and his son Madhavdas sponsored civic services temples dharamshalas wells and tanksIt was literally my nose that led me to a pair of similarly christened Pasta lanes behind Chitra Cinema on Dr Ambedkar Road Dadar Caught in a swirl of smellsmdashPhillips Coffee and Kailash Mandir Lassi near the station tandoori rotis pressed hot on the pavement outside Mohamedi Restaurant now ZaiqaamdashI stopped at Gupta Soaps factory in Goculdas Pasta Lane Even behind closed doors whiffs of sudsy detergent and Hamam soap a torn ad for which still stuck jagged on the paintpeeled wall seemed to blow fragrant bubbles at meMor Bungalow in Vile Parle File pic and Satej ShindeEasy to imagine such scents once offset the malodour of heavylayered greasepaint from Ranjit Studios round the corner where directors up until Manmohan Desai shot serial blockbusters In fact the movie mogul with the Midas touch believed that space was extremely lucky for him The location where Manji as the industry hailed him filmed Amar Akbar Anthonyrsquos qawwali sequence with Rishi Kapoor booming ldquoPurdah hain purdahrdquo was Tejpal Hall at Gowalia Tank Initiated by Radhakumar the greatgrandson of merchant Goculdas Tejpal from Kothara in Kutch the 639seater Sheth Goculdas Tejpal Auditorium opened doors to theatreloving throngs in September of 1960 Significantly on December 28 1885 the Indian National Congress had been formed at the Tejpal Sanskrit College on this stretch of Tejpal RoadTopiwala National Medical College whose benefactor was Motiram Topiwala Desai his Goregaon relatives the Samants with a model of their 1891 cottage Pic courtesyTNMC and File picsldquoOur father assigned specialisations to experts like the civil engineer BE Doctorrdquo said Sudhir Tejpal Radhakumarrsquos son ldquoActors and audiences have much appreciated our auditoriumrsquos acousticsrdquo Booked way in advance for diverse programmes the venuersquos fine sound standard drew groups like the Bombay Madrigal Singers Organisation to packed houses at each concert Opera buffs remember enjoying sopranos like Celia Lobo essay the role of Violetta in a 1962 performance of La TraviataWay across town half a century earlier with public welfare uppermost in mind the patriarchrsquos son Govardhandas Goculdas Tejpal donated four acres of land plus aconsiderable monetary dispensation to build Vile Parle Station around 1906 The Tejpals also developed a vital network of roads from the early 1920s referred to as Tejpal Scheme today tooSwami Vivekananda stayed in the Borivli home of Chhabildas Lalubhai still from Uddhwasta Dharmashala at Chhabildas School Dadar Pics CourtesyWikimedia Commons and Dr Shreeram LagooRoopvedh ArchivesIn a display of keen aesthetics Govardhandas combined entrepreneurial acumen with the pleasure afforded by having designed a grand ancestral seat in Vile Parle which dazzled citywide Taking five years to embellish the fouracre palatial property was crowned by a distinctive brass peacock perched on an impressive dome Mor Bangla as it was called presented striking glass mosaic inlays winking colours in different light and rolling gardens with a swimming pool After the 1950s this gem gradually lost its lustre the splendour replaced by a chaotic municipal market Agrawal market and the Dinanath Mangeshkar NatyagrihaOther city institutions that the Tejpals extended their munificence to include the Goculdas Tejpal Hospital and GT SchoolPasta Lane 1 of the quartet of Colaba roads sharing their name with Dadar lanes which honour philanthropist Goculdas Pasta File picBridging the miles from Bombay Central to Goregaon education and cinema scored unique goals through the respective charities of the Topiwala and Samant families Filmmaker Vikas Desai Topiwala tells a riveting tale of his hatmaker greatgrandfather Anant Shivaji Desai Topiwala who ran away at 11 with a mere rupee in his pocket from Walawal village in Sawantwadi to the 19thcentury cityApprenticing as a tailor he progressed to fashion stylish headgear for the creme de la creme and rose to be a rich landowner His descendants gifted Bombay the Topiwala National Medical College at Bombay Central and Topiwala Theatre in GoregaonBesides crafting signature topis Anant Shivaji Desai dealt in silver copper and brass kitchen implements His son Narayanrao continued trading in metals Narayanrsquos son Motiram Desai pioneered anodised aluminium in India as well as introduced velvet fabric He and his stepbrother Sitaram became empire builders imbued with rare altruistic zealBetter known as Topiwala Desai Motiram made a memorable contribution to fund more expansive facilities for Topiwala National Medical College In 1946 he nobly signed a blank cheque in 1946 on which Congressman SK Patil famously proceeded to ink ldquoRs 500000rdquoGuiding me between Goregaon gullies the softspoken Girish Samant son of freedom fighter Baburao Samant laughed ldquoWe are the aborigines of Goregaon Ours was one of only three pucca homes in a tangle of jungle jhopdis Vikasrsquo father Motiram held my father in high regard and assigned him responsibilities in family trustsrdquo Motiram Desairsquos mother was Girishrsquos grandfather Balkrishnarsquos cousinBefore it became a multiplex Topiwala Theatre in Goregaon with over 1000 seats was constructed by Sitaram Desai in 1969 with Asiarsquos first mirror screenmdashtwo screens flashed from one projectorA sage and a stage connected unusually as I discovered while working in Borivli This northwestern suburb is soil that Swami Vivekananda trod A year prior to his journey to America from Bombay in May 1893 representing India at the Parliament of the Worldrsquos Religions in Chicago that September the philosopher happened to be in Bombay Barrister and Sanskrit scholar Ramdas Chhabildas invited him to stay awhile at Samudra Villa the longporched Chhabildas bungalow with stables off Nepean Sea RoadTogether they visited Ramdasrsquo father Chhabildas Lalubhairsquos Borivli home The three men then proceeded to the Kanheri Caves whose rockcut architecture inspired Vivekananda to visualise the Ramkrishna temple at Belur Math In an essay on Vivekanandarsquos city hosts Swami Shuddharupananda has written ldquoThe Borivli bungalow of Chhabildas Lalubhai was where he entertained It is possible Swamiji was lodged in this In the evening many people visited to listen to his talksrdquoA young man called Chandrakant was among them With his guru passing the disciple halted daily by that house hands humbly folded in salutation He followed this routine until he died at a ripe age Sunil Goragandhi greatgrandson of Chhabildas Lalubhai told me in his busy Borivli cafe on Chandavarkar RoadGoragandhirsquos motherrsquos grandfather lent his name to Chhabildas High School in Dadar the crucible of vital 1970s theatre genres especially MarathildquoChhabildas was a place where you could make a fool of yourself where great creation could happen It was heavenrdquo exults Naseeruddin Shah in The Scenes We Made An Oral History of Experimental Theatre in Mumbai edited by Shanta Gokhale ldquoIt helped me realise the damn front curtain was an archaic bloody institutionrdquo Not just a space to put up plays this cultural crib cradled the most brilliant personalities Repository of an allMaharashtra movement galvanising the drama world with dynamic thought Chhabildas hall served as an equally levelling force within Bombay Arpana director Sunil Shanbag explains ldquoIf there was something like Shivaji Underground at Bhimnagar Mohalla at Chhabildas the same slightly lsquoSoBogentryrsquo types there at NCPA turned up to see it Yoursquod have a Shyam Benegal a Jennifer Kapoormdashwho would stick out in the audiencerdquo Boosting business for the small batata vada stall downstairs and chaiwala at the back Chhabildas proved an embracive meeting point for practitioners like Sunil Tawade from Borivli or Shafaat Khan from MumbraTo cynics writing off that stage renaissance Rajiv Naik offers a hopeful view in the bookmdashldquoEvery generation looks for its adda its platform The golden age is amyth created by the old The messiah has never arrived He is always awaitedrdquoAuthorpublisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay You can reach her at mehermarfatiamiddaycomwwwmeher marfatiacom