History through the lives of others

Smog hung listlessly over the Arabian Sea, enveloping Marine Drive like a semi-transparent shroud through which the buildings perched on this gently curving stretch of reclaimed land resembled ghost-like apparitions. Time seemed to stand still as I looked out of the half-open, huge windows of Mahendra Doshi’s cavernous workshop in Walkeshwar. Set far back from the busy road and with nothing but the sea at the other end, barely a sound filtered through.  We could have been in another century, I thought, as I looked round the three-tiered workshop where old furniture and objects of daily life of times long past were being restored by a score of craftsmen, silently going about their way bringing back to life vestiges of the past.  I had dropped in on my friend Chiki Doshi — he works with his uncle Mahendra — to see the restored colonial and art deco furniture as well as traditional Indian chests and carved furniture that will be exhibited later this month at the Ananda Coomaraswamy Hall at the Prince of Wales Museum. Titled, Something old, Something new, the exhibition will include the authentically old as well as the authentically new: reproductions for those with tinier budgets. Undoubtedly, the immaculately restored old furniture of the Raj is fascinating, even quirky: from a whimsical Victorian chaise lounge for women, art deco chairs, an 8-feet high rosewood writing bureau (apparently many European men of letters chose to stand and write) to a foldable brass chaise lounge with wheels and a compact art deco bathroom — also foldable — the last two form part of the British campaign furniture for soldiers on the move.  But what stopped me dead in my tracks were the objects of quotidian life that still had a whiff of the past about them. Fact-studded history books can tell you a great deal about how people lived in other times and places. But touching the clothes they wore or passing your fingers over what they used makes the past and lived lives more poignantly alive.   In Mahendra’s benign cabinet of curiosities many objects have a story to tell. Some even had secrets that had long remained buried — secrets that emerged gradually. About two decades ago Mahendra, who is known for his unerring nose for sussing out rare artefacts, came across a large, wooden jewellery box. Objects of everyday life are his passion. When he first saw it, the box resembled a stack of cards. Weeks of restoration revealed multiple chor khannas (secret drawers). Most of them have a spring and open when a button undetectable to the eye is pressed. A carpenter found some silver and gold coins in one of the hidden drawers. For years the box with beautiful inlay work just lay there, almost forgotten until six years ago while foraging through it Chiki came across a letter tucked into a drawer that had remained hidden till then.  It is a letter from a Parsi gentleman to his mistress written in the late 19th century. Explains Chiki: “He writes to tell her that he would be reaching Victoria Terminus at such and such hour and will take a tonga to the Astoria, where she should meet him.” This letter was written a month before the planned assignation in this hotel near Churchgate.  I kept staring at the lovely box until I could almost visualise the clandestine rendezvous, like a sequence out of a period film: the lady would probably have taken a tram to the Astoria and her lover would have commandeered a Victoria to take him there.  Museums displaying the objects of everyday lie are not uncommon in Europe: Paris even has a Musee de la vie Romantique. It’s time we had some of them here. Mahendra’s workshop is a veritable Ali Baba’s cave of treasures, with bits and pieces that silently tell their stories; many even inform us about relationships between people of different backgrounds.The writer is a Delhi-based journalist