Queen Victoria lives on in some of Mumbai's balconies and balustrades

The Queen lives on in Mumbai Postcolonial cities rarely wipe out the memory of their former monarchs and nothing could be a finer example than Mumbai where the vestiges of the British Empire are mired in controversy Its why statues are shunted around and railway stations are renamed But when the English hope their queens will live long they are not jokingThere is no cause for alarm though All that we are referring to are cast iron railings seen on balconies balustrades and porches in old buildings and bungalows stretching right from Fort to Malad These inconspicuous railings are the last places that wed expect Queen Victoria the former Empress of India to be iconicised And even as they fight a bitter battle against time and rust these railings are garnering a lot of attention right from history buffs on social media to inspiring designs for wallhangingsCast iron railings in a Malad bungalowMumbai experts Aadil Desai and Deepak Rao rattle off the number of places where this particular style of railings can be spotted Its not an easy task Despite their ornate design with the regal figurehead in the centre these railings are like any other mdash buried under a mess of hoardings wires tarp trellises and cloth linesChanging lifestylesDesai and Rao point us in the direction of Byculla to Love Lane Here is the Regina Pacis Convent the erstwhile home of Cotton King Premchand Roychand On the convent grounds is a building overlooking the Byculla Police Station where some of the last remnants of these regal railings can be seen It is speculated that the building was once the servant quarters of the Roychand household and was converted into a residential and commercial property upon sale to the conventBearing the Gothic portrait of Queen Victoria as seen in the Indian regal issue of coins of 1862 A longtime resident of Regina Pacis Building Vishwas Waman Deshpande 61 tells us that it was probably constructed around 1860 and that the first floor corridor was lined with these railings However 80 per cent of it is gone People extended their flats till the common corridor and built new walls after removing the railings he says In 2008 Deshpande extended his living room till the corridor He doesnt have the railings anymore The contractor took them away with him he tell us wondering if there was much sense in preserving these rusting railingsCast iron railings including the regal impression are a part of our industrial heritage says conservation architect Vikas Dilawari They came in big way in mid19th century and residential architecture picked them as an integral feature of buildings bungalows and chawls Initially imported from Glasgow and other parts of the UK they were later manufactured in Richardson and Cruddas in Byculla But lifestyles have changed says DilawariA less ornate but similar design seen in cast iron railings in a cottage near Bandra railway station PicsNimesh DaveThese belonged to a time when seating habits meant squatting on the floor and you could allow the breeze to come through the railings Now everyone wants space a boxed balcony and an airconditioner Naturally and sadly these railings are going he says But is the crowned bust moulded on these railings really the former Empress of India Desai tells us I am not sure if it is Queen Victoria herself It is more likely that these are a homage to the Crown rather than the Queen specificallyA clue from coinsThe answer might lie in another metallurgical product mdash coins We got close to two versions of the railings one in Malad and one in Bandra both among the best preserved of the lot The example in Malad lines the porch of an old bungalow which partially functions as a gym On that says numismatist Pascal Lopes is Queen Victoria It is comparable to the profile seen in the regal issue coins of 1862 in India on which a young Queen Victoria was minted Lopes explains that the regal issue minted in Bombay Calcutta and Madras followed the style of the crowned effigy that first appeared in English currency in the mid1800s during the Gothic revivalThe Gothic portrait in the English currency was created by Royal Mint engraver William Wyon and was introduced first in 1847 The portrait featured an ornate crown and a dress embroidered with roses thistles and shamrocks the national plants of England Scotland and Ireland When the Gothic portrait appeared on English currency in the mid1800s it was so after a gap of nearly 200 years that a crowned monarch was featured in a coin It was otherwise unusual to see Queen Victoria bearing her regal headgear East India Company coins for instance paid homage to a maidenly crownless portrait of the QueenIn India the Gothic style was engraved by LC Wyon of the Royal Mint London and was modified by Calcutta Mints head engraver Kashinath Das The difference between the two engravers can be identified from the robe design of the queen says Lopes just as in the many versions of the railing portraits tooIn Bandra you can spot the other example in a bungalow near the railway station The house as far as the owner knows dates back to the early 1900s But of the cast iron railings mdash their history is unknown he says Here the queens face is not welletched although she still bears a striking resemblance to the original portrait There are also other examples in the city where the profile looks to the right instead of the formal leftUnless the railings have been installed wrongly thats usually not the case The face appears a little masculine too It is likely that these were copies made by local grill makers says Lopes Whether historical heritage or copies of the legacy we still have the Queen for company She may be a little rusty but she peeks out from under AC units and cloth lines reminding us cheekily of an era gone byCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android 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