April 12 spelt the end of an era, when a majority of the members of Sahitya Sahawas, the iconic authors’ housing society in Bandra East, voted for redevelopment. With this, nearly all societies on Madhusudan Kalelkar Marg have fallen to the pandemic of redevelopment.

Sahitya Sahawas was established in 1965 by the stalwarts of Marathi literature, Acharya Prahlad Keshav Atre and Anant Kanekar, for authors. This is perhaps the only such housing society of its kind in the country. The nine buildings (construction began in 1966) in the colony are named after well-known poems, plays, or forms of literature. The first generation of children to grow up here had the privilege of getting to know noted authors such as Vinda Karandikar, Dharmaveer Bharati, Arvind Gokhale, Shanta Shelke, MV and Vijaya Rajadhyaksha, RB Joshi, KJ Purohit, Dr Bal Phondke, Anuradha and Narayan Athawalay, Va Pu Kale, A K Priolkar, Dr Y D Phadke, Subhash Bhende, Madhusudan Kalelkar, M V Dhond, Me Pu Rege, Jayant Mehta, Keshav Meshram, Wa La Kulkarni, Ra Bha Patankar, Kru Ra Sawant, Chandrakant Bandiwadekar, Madhukar Toradmal, Girija Keer, and others. We residents can walk across to Rajadhyaksha kaku’s house and ask to borrow her book, or call up Phondke kaka and seek his advice on something.