Homes around Shivaji Park have some warm tales to unfold

The inscription on this pyaav notes it was built to commemorate Ramji Setiba from a donation the advocate general received PicDatta KumbharAt an age kids are taught ABC I learnt lisping CDP she laughs Chevrolet Dodge Plymouth My carcrazy father taught me which was which sitting there says Anuradha Chaubal Shah pointing to part of the squat parapet that circles Shivaji ParkKindness is endemic to this column It thrives on the warmth of people opening up their past to recount the way we were in a more intimate city Total stranger turned friend Anuradha strolls me through the ring of buildings around this park where she grew up The film professional reveals special moments I shared secrets with my best pal on this porch to Thats where we cheered Ram Leela performances Ram was adored yet some of us leaned towards feistier LaxmanA public adda radiating remarkable positivity and inclusion Shivaji Park has never raised railing barricades It extends al fresco Bombays most level embrace Easier accessible than Oval and Azad maidans its katta culture is both gift and invitation This living room of the city asks everyone to take a seat on its simple kerb edge So they do runners to flaneurs resting awhile watching the world fly byA chana walla at Shivaji Park with one of his youngest customers a little over a year old Anuradha Chaubal in 1960Created in 1925 by the Bombay Municipal Corporation this was called Mahim Park till 1927 the Maratha rulers 300th birth anniversary year saw it renamed Shivaji Park at BMC councillor Avantika Gokhales behest With Dadar and Matunga the City Improvement Trust conceived Shivaji Park to decongest the Fort area after the 1890s plague Lowslung buildings knitted close owners and tenants from 1936 They formed a Ushaped crescent of ground plus two floor structures along Keluskar RoadAdapting global Art Deco ideas local architects assigned them vernacular symbols like the lotus and swastikaThe parkfront main streets old and new names are strangely connected Cadell Road took after Major Thomas Cadell chief commissioner of the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the late 1900s Veer Savarkar Marg honours the patriot imprisoned at the Cellular Jail there 50 years laterThe grounds hold Shivaji Park Gymkhana Bengal Club Maharashtra State Bharat Scouts and Guides Pavilion 1922established Nagarik Sangh and Samarth Vyayam Mandir founded in 1925 by wrestler PL Kale Guruji where Uday Deshpande has trained kids at mallakhamb for 40 years Facing them are Mahatma Gandhi Olympic Pool Vanita Samaj hall Keraleeya Mahila Samaj nursery from 1909 and the contentious Mayors BungalowShivaji Park revels in legendary twin avatars cradle of city cricket and hotspot of state politics Noisier nearing Maharashtra Day its pounded by parade practice when I visit This is seasoned soil witness to bravura speeches at rousing rallies Tilak to Thackerays Mahatma to Samyukta Maharashtra Chalval struggling for the 1960 consolidated state That movement earned socialist writer PK Atre who led it the title Lord of Shivaji ParkFlorist Laxmi VardeLobo amid her colourful blooms at Prabhat the ancestral home the familyrsquos fourth generation continues to live in after her grandfather Shankar Varde built it in 1936 PicSameer MarkandeMany have lorded these acres aggressively since We shared great community spirit till the 1970s says civic stalwart Ashok Ravat His father Kashinath relocated from cramped Girgaum erecting the family cottage with a Jewish architect in 1936 Singlestorey Dadaji Nishant honouring Kashinaths father Dadaji had breezy views of maidan beach and sea The dignity of Shivaji Park is being destroyed its fabric unrecognised Ravat ruesDespite churning dilemmas heritage grades silence zone issues redevelopment pitting politico memorials against playschools solidly middle class Maharashtrian oldtimers try to remain hopeful They have long been in the thick of things together Crowdfunded in 1966 the Shivaji monument had mill workers give a rupee each for its construction This portrays the Maratha in a nonconfrontational pose His raised right hand benevolently shows the way while the sword to his left stays sheathed a throwback to pacifist notions of leadership The brass statue is painted over for repeated Republic Day and Shiv Jayanti celebrations Thats not the only lost gloss at Shivaji Park With properties prime pieces of the real estate pie it undergoes slow but soon steadier greedier land grabAs Anuradha and I explore the parks elegant fringe shes greeted every foot of the route by lighteyed sharpnosed features typical of Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu and Saraswat Brahmin communities morning walkers They catch cool breaths under banyan and rain trees rubbing boughs with summer bursts of gulmohar and rusty shield bearers An old stone fountain brings unexpected delight Such pyaavs were commemorative This inscription notes it was for Ramji Setiba from a donation the advocate general receivedShortly beyond comes an unimaginative corner memorial to C Ramachandra The music director resided at Sai Prasad where popular character actor Gajanan Jagirdar conducted acting classes A slant south composer Vasant Desai enjoyed maidan matches from his Parimal Building balcony Beside Ramachandra Chowk joggers halt in their tracks bowing before what was a tiny INRI cross Iesus Nazarenus Rex ludaeorum Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews now Holy Cross ChapelMidpoint on the parks periphery we fall in love with Sarah Lodge once the pride of post office employee Eliab Erulkar his wife Sarah and five children who carved careers in medicine and engineering The Star of David motif still graces decrepit verandah grills as well as a stained glass patch as breathtaking as it is broken Another Bene Israel family was music director David Reubens in Krishna Kunj ndash I could hear the harmonium when passing by his building Anuradha tells me The Aarons and Samsons were at Penso Villa where travel consultant Clement Aarons continues living in possibly the earliest home built in 1934 by his IAS collector grandfather Khan Bahadur Solomon Benjamin Hannah Samson Benjamins daughter ran Childrens Corner nursery here from 1963Education education education is the Maharashtrian mantra says Laxmi Lobo in her flower shop Spring Blossoms opposite Aaji Ajoba Udyan and the eastside entrance marked by Meenatai Thackerays statue Four generations owe her grandfather Shankar Varde their present home Prabhat Laxmis father Mohan remembers Shivaji Park all palm grove and wilderness crawling with scorpions snakes and thieves before it went from dense jungle to dry dustbowlDad and daughter describe itinerant feriwalas local vendors from the 1940s The air rang with the bell tring of the ice lolly mans bicycle and cries of doorstep fisher folk announcing their arrival Chinese silk peddlers wandering with wrapped yardage called out loud as did the mithai walla from Uttar Pradesh who tied a white cloth over fresh sweets stacked in aluminium thalisSalt sellers carried their goods in leather pouches filled from thick gunny sacks on a handpulled wooden cart delivering a kilo for less than 1 anna A diminutive man pushed the meethachi gadi laden with a small hill of sea salt yelling Meeth ala Meeth Kids waited for Friday when hawkers scooped chanasing from a heavy brass measure My mother bought her sarees from Chanderi Indori and Maheshwari wallas coming to the house from places where they were originally woven adds Anuradha It was exciting to see those saree ka gatthasWe detour briefly inward to Lalit Estate to say hello to mutual friend Shanta Gokhale Knowing our admired authorcritic must be writing I call from below Promptly popping up at the window she waves us in A thrill to find her immersed in translating Acharya and Shingnes seminal 1889 work Mumbaicha Vruttant from Marathi to EnglishParkbound again theres chai to sip with Reza Irani Saqi at Shivaji Parks sole such surviving restaurant The entrance politely asserts Welcome to Light of Bharat 1940 No change of Rs 2000 Thank you My eyes widen at a cabinet of vintage cameras and teacups arranged in an artful pyramid Rezas grandfather Ghulam Hussein fled Yazd as a boy of 16 for this city of dreams Theirs is among just five cafes serving Sultani Kepsa a rich biryani derived from the Saudi Arabian dish KabsaBack on Keluskar Road buildings wear near similar facades Prabha Vijay is rather like Champak Radha Kunj resembles Dikshit Nivas Madhuri Dixits fathers ancestral home bang beside it Architects used to be casually instructed to copy an appealing design says Kiron Kunte His UKqualified engineer grandfather Vaman Krishna Kunte named Radha Kunj for his wife When we played gully cricket the fire hydrants down Keluskar Road were our stumps Kunte recalls Ill say one thing for a government not always thanked the childrens garden is nicely maintainedIt is the words of Ashok Ravat that haunt me The building boom brings complete disintegration he says Roads around the park will look like tunnels flanked by towers And you wont know who your neighbours areAuthorpublisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay You can reach her at mehermarfatiagmailcom