b a n d r a

Art is the most intense mode of Individualism that the world has known... it is this fact that makes the public try to exercise over it in an authority that is as immoral as it is ridiculous, and as corrupting as it is contemptible. It is not quite their fault. The public has always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular
Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

Almost a hundred years old, Francis De Souza plays faint recollections of a Mozart violin concerto for me as his wife Tessa talks of life in Bandra during the thirties.

I first met Francis while looking for photographs on Marine Drive. He was sitting alone by the sea, lost in a well-thumbed book, with 2 pairs of spectacles hanging down from his neck. We talked of classical music, jazz and his house in Bandra with its delicate yellow wallpaper, overflowing with music, art and heavy furniture.

Bandra, or Bandora as it was formerly known, probably got its name from the large number of monkeys, or bandars, that were found here. Until it was linked to Bombay by the Mahim causeway in 1845, Bandra remained a village of thatched cottages and plantations of rice and vegetables in the low-lying areas. The railways would make Bandra more accessible, and many large villas were later built on Pali Hill. Bandra was the stronghold of the Catholic community: the local East Indians, the upper class Anglo-Indians and the British. Hindus stayed away because the municipal slaughter-house for cows was located here.

There weren't flats in those days ~ just cottages, and none higher than a single story. Although spacious inside, the houses were crammed together for security and to save precious farmland. Every house would have a flower garden, and dogs. The roads weren't tarred and a watering cart would go around to water them, but people usually just walked across empty plots and fields to get where they wanted to, except in the monsoons when the grass got too high. There were no buses and few cars; you'd have to either walk or cycle.

Tessa talks of the days when they'd do all their shopping at Crawford Market, followed by falooda at Badshah's. You didn't get ice cream then; you'd just have to make your own or wait for the kulfi seller to make his rounds at night.

Such idyllic settings seem a far cry away from the traffic snarls that plague Hill Road and Linking Road today. A few thousand people travel and choke over them every evening. Ironically, Bandra is more alive now than it's ever been. It's shops and restaurants and nightclubs burn brighter than those anywhere else, and everyone's flocking.

And yet all one has to do is walk around a corner from the arterial roads and you're in the Bandra of old: narrow, quiet, tree lined lanes, and delightful little cottages like Mon Repos where Tessa's brother still lives.

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