Email
Print
ShareMUMBAI: Bandra, a little more than 60 years ago, was a very intimate suburb. Everybody seemed to know everybody else and there was a great sense of camaraderie.
We lived next to Mount Mary's and our immediate friends were in Dubash Mansion, right next door. Down in Bandra proper -- our mansion was known as Summit View -- life was rougher and tougher, and we were apprehensive and in awe of it at the same time.
Our kindergarten was known as Toddlers' Academy, where Mehboob Studio now sprawls. My friend Manu Tandon -- whose father rose to become the first Indian to chair Hindustan Lever -- and I once tied a girl who stole our snacks to a tree, most of which still stand. Our ears rang with the scolding from our parents for several days.
When I was older, we cycled everywhere. Some of the more adventurous amongst us even cycled to Poona, as it was then called, which remained engraved in the annals of Bandra of our youth. A few years ago, I tried to cycle in Bandra, all in the interests of the environment, but found that this was a terrible hazard, given the tendency of autorickshaws to whizz centimeters past you.
When I was in college, we belonged to the Catholic Students' Association, which was an opportunity to meet members of the opposite sex -- under the guise of cultural and social activity. It was a great delight, this Celebrate Bandra, to once again meet Nalini Jones, daughter of my old friend Marguerite Suares, who has now turned into an accomplished author in the US, where she lives (her father is American). Nalini's first book is a collection of short stories, titled What You Call Winter, set in a fictional suburb of Mumbai called Santa Clara. No prizes for guessing where she has memories of -- visiting a throbbing suburban home, full of quirky relatives who didn't exist back in the USA. She is now researching a novel.
This Celebrate Bandra festival, like others, has many senior citizens who volunteer to make it such an exciting 16 days. There is Capt Reza Beg, who still cycles effortlessly through Bandra in his trademark red T-shirt and cap, and indeed led a group of bikers at the inaugural parade. There is Kekoo Gandhy, who owns Chemould Art Gallery, the country's oldest art dealer, who will speak about living in Bandra at a literary meet where old citizens reminisce, this week.
Bandra isn't what it used to be, but then, no place really is, or ought to be, unless it is recreated on the sets of a movie studio. But we would like to think that Celebrate Bandra rekindles the spirit that existed and keeps the flame alive today.
Darryl D'Monte is the convenor of the Celebrate Bandra festival
