Little jewels in the Crown

It happened this week 110 winters ago King George V and Queen Mary grandly sailed into Bombay from the Gateway of India the cityrsquos crucial entrance point through the seaways on December 2 1911As a kid I couldnrsquot stop smiling to see this monument More from healthy ego than heritage pride then George Wittetrsquos enduring edifice happens to have my birth date carved deep in its yellow basalt stoneAdvocate Erach Kotwal gallerist Shireen Gandhy and media consultant Vivek Suchanti outside their Queens Mansion offices on Prescott Road File picsAfter they fulfilled a roster of official engagements including the special inauguration of the Royal Opera House the monarch and his queen consort proceeded the following week to the spectacle of the Durbar in Delhi where they reviewed thousands of troopsThe royal couple left behind countless dramatic allusions to their visit Many names have alteredmdashthe Prince of Wales Museum and Victoria Terminus now acknowledge the statersquos legendary warrior ruler But Bombay is still strewn with cafes theatres stores and streets signboarded Regal Imperial and Crown or synonyms and derivatives of these Herersquos picking a few of our favourite stories behind the monikersVoice of India restaurant at Girgaum switched its earlier completely colonial name postIndependence PicBipin KokateWhile the most common ndash Royal and Crown ndash qualify everything from mithai shops paan stalls and bakeries to chemists hairstyling salons and driving schools Victoria Imperial Empire and Queen also offer some terrific tales behind the epithets Feet away from Congress House near Kennedy Bridge is the nearly 150yearold Queen Mary School It was opened in 1875 with a name as improbable as the Bombay Indian Female Normal School by Harriet Butt of the Zenana Bible Medical Mission in Byculla Relocating as the Girgaon Girls High School this was rechristened in 1892 after the Queen Empress laid the foundation for its hallNew Empire cinema at Fort announcing the 1948 film I Love Trouble as the next changeTo quote from ldquoThe Maharanirsquos Locketrdquo an account in the Queen Marian magazine by the schoolrsquos legendary principal Betty Shelton ldquoIn Bombay two English nurses gave maternity care and even occasional lessons to secluded girls longing to be literate One attended on a Maharani during a complicated childbirth The nurse was going on home leave The Maharani handed her a locket instructing that it be handed over to Queen Victoria When the nurse tried explaining she could not just see the Queen the Maharani said her subjects could speak to her so the nurse had to find some way of meeting the QueenldquoBack in the UK Trust members helped fulfill her assignment In that locket was a personal request to Victoria to train women for medical studies as suffering females were not permitted male doctors The Maharanirsquos SOS was heeded women were allowed into UK universities Of the first six lady doctors four landed up serving their sisters in India The Blind School for Women started in Dehradun orphanages in West India at Manmad and Sholapur Bombay children began learning in Zenanas and eventually in a central quarter Lady teachers arrived to run the prototype of our Schoolrdquo Educational institutions apart standing tall are usual suspects like Victoria Terminus and social clubs like the PVM Princess Victoria Mary Gymkhana Further north of the Victoria Gardens Rani Baug subsequently Marathafied to Veermata Jijamata Udyan on Victoria Road Byculla an interesting smaller trio invokes the Dowager QueenAt Victoria Dry Cleaners and Dyers on LJ Road in Mahim Valerian Quadros speaks of how his father Ignatius rose from working for Leach and Weborny to become proprietor of Blue Angel Laundry at Tardeo in 1965 ldquoHe took over Victoria in the early 1990s We may have an oldfashioned name but innovate actively in competitive times operating German Italian and American machinesrdquo he says of the laundryrsquos spankingnew renovation Valerian concedes that this establishment got named partly for Empire and most certainly for divinityNext door another oldtimer refers in equal measure to Victoria Our Lady of Victories Church famed for an 1885inscribed cross attached to Victoria High School ldquoMy grandfather Abdullah Jaffer who came from Surat sold his own books along with soaps and detergentsrdquo says Arif Merchant in Victoria Music House amp Library His father Noor Ali decided to consolidate those collections in 1950 Perched on a small stool while chatting with him I am dwarfed by towering piles of publications stacked in glorious variety Amazingly with Diamond Comicsrsquo Mahabali Shaka and the Disturbed Soul you can pick classics like Ifor Evansrsquo Short History of English LiteratureNot far from these Victoriabearers a quiet gem shone till it became a relatively recent casualty of the metro construction Crown Bakeryrsquos stately wall clock stopped ticking in 2017 after 64 years of feeding the city Khodaram Khosravirsquos charming shop later run by his grandsons baked hot a range of woodfired breads pista biscuits mawa cakes and creamyundergoldencrust bread pudding ldquoA shop that bravely refused to shut at the height of the 1993 riots and stood strong right through the dark days of the Emergency is gone because of a trainrdquo laments one regular Moremidtown a symbolic crown representation marks the beautifully embellished Banoo Mansions at Kemprsquos Corner Why are its Baroque Revival features the corner bay and massive rounded column topped by a magnificent stone crown Apparently because this 1909 structure rose just ahead of the 1911 regal entry into townFrom the New Majestic Restaurant amp Stores below Capitol Cinema at VT emerges the extraordinary account of a gritty peasant boy escaping a bleak future in his native Iran Khodamurad Meherwan realised his village of Mazrekalantary held dim prospects beyond slaving in dry fruit orchards From Yazd he travelled 2500 kilometres the very hardest way on the backs of camels and mules finally jumping on a train from Karachi to reach the city of his dreams in 1929In Bombay the 15yearold found a mentor in a kind uncle who got him started on sweeping the floors of Majestic Restaurant for five rupees a day In the 1860s Majestic sold toiletries stationery cutlery toys tobacco and Kodak photographic supplies Khodamuradrsquos grandson Shahzad Kalantary took over in 1984 returning from London when customers were wooed with draught beer and a classic bubbleshaped jukebox blaring Bollywood hitsSometimes incongruity makes one wonder about a colonial name Or the lack of one as I felt while ferreting another Irani family story Khodadad Circle in east Dadar takes after travel writer Gustasp Iranirsquos ancestor The four buildings ringing this roundabout were erected by his grandfather Gustasp and his brother Rustom The municipal commissioner agreed to name the circle for their father Khodadad Clockwise as Tilak Bridge ends are Empress Mahal Empire Mahal Imperial Mahal and Harganga Mahal formerly Rustom MahalCompleted by 193435 following Sohrabji Bhedwarrsquos design why do all but one of these buildings remain colonially christened Fully curious about this solitary local name I asked around To no avail initially It remained for a watchman at Harganga Mahal to lead me to Ishwar Singh Chowhan who explained that the property was renamed Harganga in 1944 once it passed on to his uncle Harnam Singh and father Ganga SinghTheatre halls such as Regal Imperial Edward and Majestic rose as fingerposts to history under the hold of the Raj Fighting back were cinemas whose proprietors underlined a changed narrative Liberty at Marine Lines was introduced in the year of Independence Leading up to Liberty opening were theatres pronouncing patriotism particularly in the workingclass belt of ParelLalbaugByculla When Dorab Jamshedji Pandeyrsquos Hindmata started shows in 1930 the theatre served as a venue for Quit India movement protests Two contemporaries Bharatmata screening Marathi movies and Jai Hind came to be clubbed together colloquially as Mother IndiaSeized by the spirit of nationalism filmmakers obliquely or obviously fought BritishIndian censors They sought to tame the throne with at least two dozen titles released between 1921 and 1947 Using to advantage the fact that the English inaccurately comprehended Hindi were rousing 1940s lyrics like ldquoCharkha chalao behnordquo for Aaj ka Hindustan ldquoChal chal re naujawanrdquo for Ek Phool Do Mali and ldquoDoor hato aey duniya walo Hindustan hamara hairdquo for Kismet The last mentioned resulted in arrest warrants against Kavi Pradeep and music director Anil BiswasKeen to add heft to the heady aftermath of fresh freedom references to dukes lords and governors galore were reimagined post1947 From Willingdon to Wellington their honorifics have tagged everything from swishy clubs to barber shops To sign off with a splendid sample of humbled Britanniahellip Clear about its allegiance this plumpositioned cafe at a Girgaum corner close to the Portuguese Church smoothly switched names from Viceroy of India to Voice of IndiaAuthorpublisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay You can reach her at mehermarfatiamiddaycomwwwmeher marfatiacom