Visiting Babasaheb’s home

Illustration/Uday Mohite

When you're visiting a place for just a few days, you usually end up seeing interesting places that the locals have never gotten around to seeing. That's how it was, that last year, when visiting New York, I went to Columbia University on a pilgrimage, to pay my respects at the famous bust of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. I have been researching for a project on caste since eight years; and still feeling a bit directionless, I beseech him for a sign. Then it hit me like a thunderbolt: it felt as if, impatient at my dithering, he was asking me, when are we going to see it? I was very overwhelmed and burst into tears, and relieved I was on the right track. Much later, I laughed heartily at this fully filmy scene, like Amitabh Bachchan's monologuebaazi in Deewaar, beseeching a statue of Lord Shiva in the temple for his mother's life, cut to his Maa, Nirupa Roy, coming to life in the hospital. It was profound and ridiculous at the same time.

Soon after, accompanied by Somnath Waghmare, I visited Babasaheb's former home at Rajgruha, Hindu Colony, Dadar East. I was mortified by the rather modest approach in honouring the home of such a great leader as Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, chief architect of the Constitution of India, economist, revolutionary social reformer, historian, politician, jurist, anthropologist and more. There were four-five modest rooms, with his ashes in an urn, shabbily preserved faded photographs, a bed, a marble bathtub, a few vessels and pathetic documentation and display. Later, I had the privilege of paying my respects in the inner sanctum at Chaityabhoomi, Babasaheb's memorial, where he was cremated in 1956, at Dadar Chowpatty, Mumbai, near midnight of December 6th last year. It is the date of his death, commemorated as his ‘mahaparinirvan divas', and I spent time in the prayer hall, along with his immediate family and friends, with Buddhist monks in orange robes chanting prayers, as lakhs of his followers/devotees queued up in the streets outside, many having come from faraway places all over India and beyond.

It was only last week that I managed to visit Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar's former home in Parel. He lived at 50/51, second floor, BIT (Bombay Improvement Trust) Chawl No 1, Parel East, for 22 years from 1912 to 1934, in two modest rooms in the chawl - a row of rooms opening onto a common passage. The sweet-natured Rohan Tadilkar, 30, who works with Federal Bank, lives with his mother and sister in Room 50. "I'm very blessed to stay in this house. My grandfather Kalidas Sakharam Tadilkar worked with Babasaheb's Samata Sainik Dal, which Babasaheb had created, and when he moved to Rajgruha, he gave the room to my father. I'm the third generation here. People come in all the time, especially on April 14 and December 6 [Babasaheb's birth and death anniversaries], including many foreigners, but we are very happy they come," he says. Room 50 was used as an office and library, and Room 51, opposite, was their living room and kitchen, he adds. He is a BCom, whose dream is "to travel the world," and I try to persuade him to study a little more first. Babasaheb's years when he was based here, were momentous: he did an MA in Economics from Columbia University, USA, in 1913; he started the weekly Mooknayak in Mumbai in 1920; he led the Mahad Satyagraha in 1927; he participated in the Second Round Table Conference in London in 1932. If Rohan can recall any of this, he doesn't let on. Opposite, in Room 51, live Kalpit Khaire and his wife Supriya Kalpit Khaire; also the third generation there. "We are relatives of Babasaheb: Babasaheb's older brother Anandrao's wife is my father's atya (father's sister)," Kalpit tells me. "Babasaheb and Ramabai's kitchen was here; and Ramabai also struggled a lot," he adds.

In the chawl outside, is a delightful poster for the "Independence Cup," with local chawlwallahs assigned teams under Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, etc, organised by the ‘Parel Gunners,' no less! Ashwin Gangal (I think), a young man lounging by the Ganesh pandal, tells me, "Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur once drove here in his golden Maybach car [by Mercedes Benz] to meet Babasaheb. He called out to Babasaheb, and Babasaheb replied from his second floor window, ‘Wait, wait, I'll come down.' There are only two Maybachs in the world: Hitler had one, which was destroyed in World War I or World War II, but Shahu Maharaj's Maybach is still there, which his son Sambhaji Maharaj drives." I am absolutely charmed by this younger generation lore, the automobile connection to Babasaheb. In the lane is also a Malwankar Spa Ladies Beauty Parlour, a Bal Gopal Mitra Mandal organising ‘Dahikala' and Shri Krishna Janmashtami, and New Maryam Fashion. And the tiny Radha Doordhwani Kendra (Radha Telephone Centre), is a convertible; now a two-chair salon, where the client, after a haircut, gets a dramatic psshk psshk fine water spray with a flourish. At the corner chivda shop, I pick up delicious sabudana chivda and sesame jowar munchies. At the foot of the Parel/Prabhadevi railway bridge, by the Church of St Mary the Virgin, I buy terrific razeli keli, a robustly flavoured, long yellow banana variety. I'd love it if Khaki Tours or someone else would organise a multi-sensorial, exciting, Babasaheb Walk in Bombay, led by a knowledgeable Dalit, that could include Rooms 50-51, BIT Chawl at Parel, Rajgruha at Dadar East, Chaityabhoomi at Dadar West, and expand to map the larger Mumbai Dalit experience. It affects the fundamental DNA of a city when the labour class that made the city, and allows us to run our homes, is squeezed out by highrises. Former CM Uddhav Thackeray announced in 2019 that the BIT Chawl would be converted into a national Ambedkar memorial. Hum dekhenge.

Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist.
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com