‘Please, sir, I want some more’

Most toddlers have their height measured with colourful charts Mine marked theirs against tender green Christmas tree boughs Eager to check how tall they stretched every few months they stood beside a tiny potted treemdasheventually replanted in a park Each onersquos first birthday present from my husbandrsquos aunt Perin Rustomjee ldquoTheyrsquoll have fun shooting up inches with the baby treerdquo she wrote in a noteWhen I went to personally thank her for the thoughtfulness I fell in love with the Colaba lane she lived on Oliver Street lined with halfadozen quietly elegant fourstorey buildings of mixed architectural design with striking grilles windows and embellished reliefs Most of their names have changed with successive landlords More later on how the road could have got its namePerin Rustomjee warmly welcomed strangers and friends alike at Naju Manor Her daughter Nazneen says ldquoThis wasnrsquot only because she grew a garden blooming with bougainvillea roses and pink and white mussaenda She loved children She loved nature Watching her nurture plants with care drew passersby to our gateDr Harshad Vijaykar and wife Ashwini in Salma ManzilUnderprivileged kids stopped curiously at the bricked flowerbeds she was always bent over Asked what she was doing she gave them a hose pipe to water with It was constructive fun Those kids became companions Shiraz and I played with in summer holidaysrdquoNazneenrsquos brother Shiraz adds ldquoThis was a sleepy lane in the midrsquo70s The silence was cut by the sounds of itinerant vendors practising their trade everyone from the topli paneer hawker to the cotton carder twanging his dhunki instrument It was pretty and peacefulrdquo Too peaceful according to a neighbour remembering the ldquodeathly quietrdquo that drove her running out to Colaba Causeway for just a bit of bustleChecking in at Bentleyrsquos Hotel located on two levels of Naju Manor when he wanders south from his Madh Island digs photographer Hemant Chaturvedi observes ldquoMost buildings on Oliver Street predate Regal Theatre 1933 making it interesting to see how initial traces of Art Deco had already crept in Naju Manor has a beautiful Art Deco gate in an otherwise largely modern colonial structure Plenty of foreigners choose the guesthouses in these old buildings over regular hotelsrdquoKhursheed Narang at Jer Manzil PicsAditi HaralkarA fair number of locals also opted for accommodation at these guesthouses Englishman Arthur Joseph Bentleyrsquos establishment opened soon after Naju Manor Jer Manzil and Collet House Sakina Mansion today were erected between 1930 and 1932 Once spread over bunches of flats in these three buildings Bentleyrsquos currently operates from two floors of Naju ManorldquoThe concept of lsquoresidentialrsquo has changed a lotrdquo says Bentleyrsquos proprietor Homi Kaka ldquoBooked monthly or yearly guesthouse accommodation comprising two rooms with a kitchen was quite commonly used as a temporary home by some customersrdquo Theatre actors Scheherazade and Rohinton Mody lived from the rsquo70s to the rsquo90s in such a space of the hotel in Naju Manor where their mentor Adi Marzban and his wife Silla would drop in especially for Sunday lunchJer Manzil the gorgeously Georgian building facing Naju Manor housed another pair of floors for Bentleyrsquos ldquoIn the prePartition years the buildings on this street were owned by Parsis My Karachiborn father Noshir Dinshaw Sidhva came to Jer Manzil around 1945 His uncle Nadirshaw Sidhva and Nadirshawrsquos son Minoo the original Port Trust tenants built it in 1930rdquo says Khursheed Narang as she takes me through the compound We gaze up to admire exquisite stainedglass panels on first and secondfloor balconies glinting in shafts of fierce sun A visionary who took Grindwell Norton Limited soaring as Indiarsquos leading manufacturer of abrasives and silicon carbide Noshir Sidhva steered the company cofounded by his uncle PH Sidhwa for decades as vicechairman and managing director ldquoResident families like ours were issued a pass from the Port Trust to enter its garden behind Jer Manzilrdquo Narang addsShiraz Rustomjee on the steps of Naju Manor with his dogs Rosie and Grey right Adi Marzbanrsquos 1970s photo of his wife Silla right with actress Scheherazade Mody in Naju ManorSharing a wall with Jer Manzil and adorned with delightful swathes of hybrid architectural highlights on the facade Sakina Mansion was once Collet House It was constructed in 1932 by lawyer Pestonji Paruk whose books The Indian Succession Act and The Indian Arbitration Act became classic texts Collet was the name of the firm he earlier worked at before joining Mulla amp MullaParukrsquos granddaughter veteran journalist and social activist Meher Pestonji hosted sparkling soirees on her fourthfloor terrace They gathered together performers poets painters and printmakers from Satyadev Dubey Shabana Azmi Govind Nihalani and Pearl Padamsee to Imtiaz Dharker Nissim Ezekiel and Jeet Thayil to Akbar Padamsee and Bharati Kapadia Besides the stimulating buzz at the alfresco adda Pestonji kept paying guests from the writing world They included Dilip Thakore founder editor of Business World and Business India magazines Hutokshi Doctor and Geeta VasudevanHer apartment was never a hub for the cognoscenti alone It often doubled as a safe haven for victims of injustice or violence such as the riotscarred refugees of 199293 She recounts sadly that most neighbours and friends were unwilling to help her bring them home to shelter from affected areas mainly Dharavi and Govandi On a cheerier note she says ldquoGrowing up on this road I was forever up to madness with my friends Lesley Shireen and Niti We dressed in crazy disguises went house to house selling craft items we created for causes we supported And we tore away on cycles to Navy Nagar then known as Duxbury Swinging on trees in the BPT garden next door a branch broke off The angry maali went to all four homes with the severed branch to complain to each set of parentsrdquoIn their cosy secondfloor apartment in Sakina Mansion Nina and Vinod Malkani point to a Buddha statue received from Meher Pestonji as a goodbye gift when she moved to Bandra Malkanirsquos father came here in 1962 Badminton champion Frene Talyarkhan lived below them where the Tambawala family does now On the ground floor was tuition teacher Tehmi Kothavala whose soninlaw Jimmy Guzdar was a subbroker associated with the Malkanisrsquo firm Jagvin Investments ldquoTheirs was the home we most frequentedmdashkind Aunty Tehmi and Uncle Polly invited us for delicious Parsi dinnersrdquo says Vinod A slant across Salma Manzil was Lalchand Building which was first called Nakra House Vinodrsquos brother Jagdish remembers maverick poetcopywriters Kersy Katrak and Arun Kolatkar pace in and out of this first of three office addresses for MCM Mass Communication and Marketing Katrakrsquos agency which turned around Indian advertising forever What Jagdish recollects more clearly is ldquoThe road was a honeypot with exceptionally attractive young ladies everywhere Boys played handball and French cricket batting in any direction to get a glimpse of girls like the three daughters of the Coates in Salma Manzil the sisters Christine and Julia in Sakina Mansion They all left for England eventuallyrdquoFrom 1930 when these buildings rose till about the 1980s the lane was predominantly occupied by Parsis Bohri Muslims Englishmen Anglo Indians and Jews The Salma Manzil home of hospitable Moses Sultoon Chairman of the Sassoon Trusts saw him engage with a stream of Baghdadi Jew visitors the actress Nadira from Nagpada among them He was respected for attending to the concerns of his community with patient attentionAcross the landing from Sultoonrsquos onetime residence I meet a Pathare Prabhu family with three generations of doctors Between sips of cooling panna which his wife Ashwini whips up on the scorcher of a May morning I listen to Dr Harshad Vijaykar a dentist narrate his story His father general physician Dr Narayan Vijaykar and gynaecologist mother Dr Nalini Vijaykar came to Salma Manzil in 1952 when it was called Nakra House ldquoThey were both very wellknown doctors in Girgaum My mother had a clinic there as well as one in Colaba Our son Ameya is a GP and daughter Apurva is a dentist working with me They carry on the medical legacy We have other examples of continuity This baakda the wooden bench we are sitting on which is over 80 years old is from my clinic Wellpreserved furniture is a matter of priderdquo Though probably the roadrsquos oldest residents even the Vijaykars leave unanswered the question we must circle back to Who was the Oliver gracing the street signboard There is no reference to him in Samuel Sheppardrsquos book Bombay Place Name and Street Names Old maps assign varied ideas A basin at the location called Oliverrsquos Folly seems to have held a coal depot and an 1866 illustration does show coal sheds An 1887 map indicates a BBampCI Railway wharf at the spot Conferring with Bombayphiles like Vinayak Talwar and Deepak Rao leaves us in a swirl of possibilities and debatable initials BPT might Oliver have been an officer of the Port Trust whose land is marked by this grid of leafy lanes BIT Was he from the Bombay Improvement Trust BBampCI Or perhaps the Railways We hope to have some more light thrown on the elusive Oliver Much like the as yet unknown gentrsquos famed Dickensian namesake askedmdashalbeit in a completely different contextmdashI request betterinformed readers ldquoPlease sir I want some morerdquoAuthorpublisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay You can reach her at mehermarfatiamiddaycomwwwmeher marfatiacom