Past forward to January 2026

Historic HanukkahJanuary 2025 began unusually in the middle of an annual Jewish feast Hanukkah is the festival of lights in Judaism The eightnight feast started on Christmas day of December 2024 mdash a special occurrence last witnessed in 2005 The Jewish month of Kislev or Chislev remarkable for the festival of Hanukkah beginning on its 25th day aligns with the Gregorian calendar any time from November 28 to December 27 The first day of Hanukkah falling on December 25 coincided with Christmas 2024 for only the fifth time since 1900This tradition of lighting lamps or candles over eight consecutive nights derives from the period when the community won back Jerusalemrsquos Second Temple after a band of brave Maccabees revolted against the Greeks around 164 BCE Rejoicing with a rededication ceremony on defeating Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Seleucid empire they found there was enough olive oil to light the wick of the menorah lampstand for a single night To their astonishment the pure oil instead lasted eight entire nightsTo commemorate that miracle Jews light the ninebranched Hanukkah menorah candelabrum eight nights in a row The main flame mdash a central ldquostarterrdquo called shamash attendant on either side of which are four upturned branches mdash is lit the first evening It in turn illuminates the second lamp and so onhellip till nine flames glow on the eighth eveningAs the oil burns for long fried foods are an essential part of this week The cityrsquos Jewish families eat chicken kanda bhaji and potato pancakes with sweet rice cooked with ghee cashews and saffron And there remains the belief that one who sees a Hanukkah light should recite a blessing A poignant tribute to a miracle of faith two millennia agoWherersquos the missing ldquorrdquoSome mysteries are resolved in strange ways This one fell into place while I was digging into the history of Malboro House on Peddar Road Formerly Kamani House this Claude Batleydesigned gem with deep circular balconies skirting spacious apartments was intended for a German lady who left in World War II before she could move inWhy is this Malboro House mdash not Marlboro House mdash on Peddar Road Pic courtesyArt Deco MumbaiNot content with collecting its construction details mdash like the fact that contractors Messrs Gannon Dunkerley executed the vision of the firm of Gregson Batley and King here mdash I was curious about a first ldquorrdquo absent in the ldquoMalborordquo nameApparently poeteditor Pritish Nandy balked at the thought of postmen associating his august address which once attracted royals the Nawab of Sachin occupied a flat above with the Marlboro cigarette brand We hope the builttolast elegance of Malboro House remains an Art Deco feast for a long while without attracting the undue attention of buildersRare relicsIn a column titled ldquoEternal storehouse of the eclectic mindrdquo I learnt more about one of the Asiatic Society of Mumbairsquos most prized antiquities Eighth to ninthcentury relics excavated in 1882 at Nala Sopara by Pandit Bhagvanlal Indraji the archaeologist numismatist epigraphist and Honorary Fellow of the SocietyThe Sopara relics five caskets from the stupa and a bronze image of Maitreya the Future Buddha Pics courtesyAsiatic Society of MumbaiAnurag AhireReceiving notes on these remains from the Bombay Gazetteer compiler James Campbell Pandit Bhagvanlal visited the spot to dig in situ a large stone coffer of a stupa Its centre contained eight significant bronzes mdash the Seven Buddhas and Maitreya the Future Buddha mdash seated around a copper casket which in turn encased four more caskets Nested one within the other these were of silver jade crystal and finally gold Evidenced from relevant Buddhist texts Pandit Bhagvanlal suggested the 13 fragmented earthenware pieces in the gold casket with gold flowers were relics of Gautama Buddharsquos begging bowlBhagvanlalrsquos finds fanned a stir across India Sri Lanka and Europe The Bombay Government presented the Sopara relics to the Society which displays the coffer in the vestibule while the relics are retained in safe custodyOnce upon a dogThe Autumn season of SOI Symphony Orchestra of India concerts seemed ideal to research a logo familiar to generations of music lovers HMV His Masterrsquos Voice Nipper the Jack Russell terrier named perhaps for the unfortunate manner in which he excitedly greeted visitors peers into an Edison cylinder phonograph mdash the first device to record and play back soundInternationally recognised appealing to notions of loyalty and fidelity the symbol dates to 19thcentury England Nipper was the reallife pet of Mark Henry Barraud scenery designer at the Princersquos Theatre in Bristol On Markrsquos death in 1887 his brothers Francis and Phillip cared for Nipper till he died in 1895 Three years after Francis painted him from memory quizzically listening to recordings of his beloved dead ownerrsquos voiceInitially titled ldquoDog Looking at a Phonographrdquo Francis showed ldquoHis Masterrsquos Voicerdquo to the Edison Bell Company which unimaginatively questioned ldquoSurely dogs donrsquot listen to phonographsrdquo Sold later for pound50 the painting over time had the original black horn transformed to one of the Gramophone Company Ltdrsquos modern brass gramophones and adopted as its trademark The American rights were acquired in 1929 by RCA making Nipper its de facto mascot Twenty years later the audio company placed a memorial plaque on Nipperrsquos grave beneath a mulberry tree in a garden at KingstonUponThamesBCOrsquos ballet debutPresenting the life and work of music teacher icons is always an honour Mine was the privilege of profiling a pair of legends in backtoback issues multiinstrumentalist extraordinaire Josic Menzie and Jini Dinshaw after the city lost her in October Dinshaw offered generations of musicians a platform with the Bombay Chamber Orchestra BCO which she founded mdash and which survives as the cityrsquos longestrunning Western classical music ensemble In 1985 the BCO had the distinction of accompanying Indiarsquos first live ballet mdash Giselle ndash by the Royal Ballet Company The next year saw Dinshaw awarded an MBE for her role in promoting cultural ties between Great Britain and IndiaFirst colonnaded arcadeA cultural gem birthing the countryrsquos largest art fest the Kala Ghoda Art Festival the Army amp Navy Building stands grand all the way from a triangular crowning pediment to its entranceway arches Diving into its past I rediscovered a pair of unique features about it Most strikingly this is among the cityrsquos earliest structures to have a basement and arcade with granite shafts Before the ldquocolonnaded arcaderdquo concept ran visibly along the length of DN Road this was evidenced at Army amp Navy Building and two buildings flanking it the 1860serected Watsonrsquos Hotel Esplanade Mansion and the David Sassoon Library and Reading Room Also interesting to note is the fact that the offices of the Bombay Municipal Corporation were initially at the site of this buildingHockey heroesI stumbled on a delightful double treat interviewing residents of the cul de sac called Spence Lane in Byculla Norma Arklie Otter soon to turn 92 and her husband Colin Otter were the first tenants to occupy Maimoon Manzil at the end of the gullyNorma Arklie standing leftmost last row with the first womenrsquos hockey team to England at the international tournament in Kent 1953 PicFacebookAngloIndian StoriesIn the earliest hurrah for womenrsquos hockey 19yearold Arklie represented India among 16 participant countries at the International Federation of Womenrsquos Hockey Association Conference and Tournament in Folkestone Kent England in 1953MM Somaya the Olympic hockey champ lived in Karani Building at the start of the lane He said ldquoSpence Lane knew me as Prem Muttana Prem being my name at home Muttana my fatherrsquos When newspapers referred to MM Somaya bringing India a Gold neighbours didnrsquot realise it was me at the Moscow OlympicsrdquoLord Vishnu and Sigmund FreudA Vishnu statue resting on the work table of the father of psychoanalysis Not entirely unimaginable but how exactly did those dots connect The Indian Psychoanalytical Society IPS was established in Calcutta in 1922 just three years after the British Psychoanalytical Society and is affiliated to the International Psychoanalytical Association IPA Working on the trajectory of the Psychoanalytic Therapy amp Research Centre PTRC in Bombay I realised that the pioneer of psychoanalysis in the country Girindrasekhar Bose was a University of Calcutta psychology student Subsequent to his 1917 doctoral thesis ldquoRepressionrdquo he exchanged correspondence with Sigmund Freud in Vienna focusing on a discussion of the Oedipus Complex Though the two men never met a Vishnu statue gifted by Bose stood on Freudrsquos deskWho is GujaratiHe made me think differently about a community I share my homestate with Salil Tripathi releasing his book The Gujaratis A Portrait of a Community said ldquoA Gujarati is one who speaks the language possibly counts in it dreams in it thinks in it the ones who moved to the land where Gujarati is spoken by the majority the ones who may speak other languages but have made Gujarat their home and preserve their minority identities and the ones who may live anywhere else in the world but are of Gujarati heritagerdquo Tripathirsquos Gujaratis include Hindus Muslims Parsis Jains Buddhists Dalits Christians Positing expansionist definitions Sardar Patel and MA Jinnah and paradoxical juxtapositions the Mahatma and Modi Tripathi said ldquoThe Tatas are prominent Gujaratis not only Ambanis Therersquos also Azim Premji mdash for what are Premjis and Tatas or Khorakiwalas and Godrejs if not Gujaratis too We are not a monolithic unidimensional cardboard cutoutrdquoAuthorpublisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay You can reach her at mehermarfatiamiddaycomwwwmeher marfatiacom