Clare Road, Street that brought home Paris
WOW!! This really takes me back to the 50s, 60s and part of the 70s. The
splendor that was once Clare Road. Lucky Moon restaurant owned by the Bahai
brothers Shapoor and Aman was very much around in the 70s when we came off our
ships and were our main source for exchanging foreign currency for Indian
rupees. They were honest and gave us a great exchange rate. Vali Mohamed Patel
must be the new owner of "Mohsin Bookstall". We rented our comics from him, the
short booklet version of "Commando Comics" and "westerns", which rented for 25
paise reach with a Rs. 3.0 deposit. Those very same comics are now hard to get
and can go from $25 to $1000 plus on ebay. I got to know Mohsin very well, and
he waived the deposit. This was also the source of my first pin-up magazines
from Jayne Mansfield to Marilyn Monroe with some Brigitte Bardot thrown in for
good measure!! All this and more while the good "Katlick Boys" were wondering
why they were stuck reading the lives of Saints!! The St. Mary Padres (no
names mentioned) were growing frantic with worry wondering why the "noon
communion" student crowd had dwindled down to a handful!! HeHeHe!! Now you
know!! Great article and if you lived on Clare Road and in the vicinity
this really takes you back to a once great city, then called Bombay!! As for
the "Paris", I'm wondering if Meher is mixing up "Sukhlaji Street (Kamatipura
aka The Red Light District). If you were wondering, Sukhlaji Street was once
called "Sufed Ghalli" where the "White Prostitutes" lived and sold their
"Parisian Wares"!! There are few more landmarks she has missed. She probably
did not eat Ice-cream from the Bhaya at the steps of Habib Park, he was there
forever, and she also left out the Rogers Bottling plant and the famous Sarvi
Restaurant which sold a cow a day in "Seekh Kababs" and many a Sheep lost its
feet there to a delicious "sheeps feet soup" aka Paya!! Enjoy.......
By Meher Marfatia | Posted 16-Apr-2017 Those who walked down Byculla's Clare
Road, once known as the Paris of Bombay, recall the charms that made it come
alive.
Brothers Emil and Yvan Carvalho, the successful fourth generation proprietor of
American Express Bakery, in the bakery of their Clare Road headquarters, which
opened in 1939. They never tired of hearing her. My kids would say "Perin
Mamma, tell us a 'real' story" and my ace raconteur mother-in-law flowed forth.
Some were boarding school tales, others about the Convent of Jesus and Mary on
Byculla's bustling Clare Road. Last week, at 80 and 81, Perin Marfatia and her
sister Meher Master posed for a picture outside their alma mater. Green
uniforms replaced with walking sticks, the visit rekindled all the excitement
of being back. A fresh flood of stories was our dinner table treat. The scene
probably plays out with millions of mums and grandmums who attended the
1912-established convent. The campus sprawls mid-point on a street spilling
with character, far from the genteel last-century spell it cast. European
carriages or "gharries", purring Plymouths and stately Studebakers rolled past
Cassi fistula trees—the Indian laburnum or "bhaya" naming Byculla—suffixed with
"khala", a threshing floor. Currently called Mirza Ghalib Marg, it honours the
19th-century poet lodging here at 17A Adelphi Chambers. Urdu writer Sadat
Hassan Manto also stayed in that block in the 1940s.
Ex-students Havovi Turel-Doodhwala and Bilkis Varawalla-Reshamvala (Class of
’73) flank Perin Kuka-Marfatia and Meher Kuka-Master (Class of ’52) at the
Convent of Jesus and Mary gate. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar A prestigious address,
Clare Road was pronounced the Paris of Bombay. It used to be an Anglo-Indian
hub before their 1960s emigration to the West. Baghdadi Jews, Protestant
Christians and Cantonese Chinese were other important settlers, contributing
the locality's hairdressers, milliners and confectioners. Sharing the frame
with Class of 52's Perin and Meher Kuka are Hutoxi Turel and Bilkis Varawalla
from Class of '73. April afternoon heat doesn't deter them from showing off the
road they roamed daily. Christened after John Fitzgibbon, 2nd Earl of Clare and
Governor of Bombay from 1831 to 1835, this street was constructed in 1867. It
is flanked north by Byculla Fire Station and the Khada Parsi statue of
Cursetjee Manockjee (he offered Indian girls the first English school in 1859
from his home, Villa Byculla) at the Y-flyover junction. Southside it has Light
of India and Rolex Restaurant face the Dawoodi Bohra community hall where the
Barodawalas set up the Zenith Tins packaging company in a garage in 1938.
Wali Mohamed has watched Clare Road change over the years since 1971 when he
started selling publications at Patel Newspaper Stall here. Pic/Suresh Karkera
I chat with Vali Mohamed Patel, ensconced in Patel Newspaper Stall opposite
the Bata showroom since 1971. "Print readership is down by 70-80 per cent," he
regrets. Adding, "No Parsis left either. Readymoney Compound was full of them."
Fronting Readymoney building is John Pinto who believes, "Everyone deserves a
good send-off." His embalming company ensures this. The spot has seen similar
proprietors for 145 years – from the city's earliest funeral director Edward
Jones and his grandson Alfred. John is the world's only undertaker appointed
MBE, Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (on repatriating
26/11 terror victims to their home countries). Oakwood coffins and cartons
cautioning Handle With Care lie with antique armoires. "Body preservation is
both art and science," he says. Readymoney colony's common wall hedges
110-year-old Taylor Memorial Methodist Church, its crowning glory a pointed
steeple. Hutoxi and Bilkis' classmate Nila Lazarus lived on these grounds. "As
a teenager I went to Lucky Moon, the Irani joint opposite, for Coke and 100
grams of chips. That was simple 'high tea' on our garden lawn," she says.
Because Bilkis grew up in Prince Court across the convent, she became carrier
pigeon. Her pinafore pockets bulged with orders placed by friends who couldn't
leave school for lunch. "For 3-5 paise, E. Rodrigues' paan beedi shop outside
sold red jeera goli packets and Fruitex toffees wrapped with stamps we
collected to win albums." Coconut or peanut chikki piece-pounded with a tiny
hammer was popular, as was white buddhi ka baal candyfloss fluttered around
sticks. "Naughtier girls placed three-minute calls to our sweethearts from the
Lucky Moon phone," Hutoxi laughs. The present avatar of that eatery, then
belonging to Baha'i brothers Shapoor and Aman, is Sigdi. The word sparks a
memory for Bilkis—"We had no gas or ovens for cooking, just coal and kerosene
stoves. A kolsa store delivered bagfuls of coal and we bought kerosene from the
ration shop." The short lane nearby is graced by Neo Classical-designed Christ
Church. In 1833, Governor Monstuart Elphinstone announced moving from Fort to
'country home' Byculla-Parel. Christ Church saved him from mass at distant St
Thomas' Cathedral. Welcoming women in veils and men in hats, Christ Church was
erected the same year as Byculla Club on adjacent Bellasis Road. Bombay's first
residential club, it introduced Byculla Souffle. Young love brewed between the
boys of Christ Church School and girls of Jesus and Mary, and St Agnes
convents. For 50 paise a song, Musical Saloon aired requests. Soft ballads to
sultry jazz, they melted the iciest object of affection. Nervously dating
couples nibbled raisin buns hot from E Hiscock's ovens. Cake shops like Marosa
and Silvana further fuelled romantic rendezvous. Born on Clare Road in 1956,
Neville Saldanha swears by the quality of Silvana's patties and pork pies.
"Socio-economic compulsions drove Catholics out to Vashi and Virar," he says.
Almost 70 years later, Monika Sequeira acknowledges her Bene Israeli craft
mentor from St Agnes. Esther Abraham inspired the master weaver we know as
Monika Correa. "She taught us lovely leather work and abla embroidery," Monika
says. Her best friend Lie Fun Yan, from next door Nagpada, excelled at sports.
Munira Jasdanwalla rode to school in a seven-seater, gold-trimmed coach pulled
by a pair of horses. "The black beauty called Jumbo was my favourite," says
Munira, now Chudasama. Monika remembers some serious feasting at chaat carts
and kulfi walas. "The Muslim restaurant beside Bata and Carona sold superb
samosas, even the suva bhaji and onion version. And we went to second-hand
stationers after losing compass boxes, atlases or Foster's copy writing book,
no chance of new replacements!" That healthy thrift typified an area
accommodating middle class residents of Lobo Mansion, Oxford Chambers,
Piccadilly Flats and Khoja Compound. Kids of these colonies squealed loud at
games of Seven Tiles and Hoppers and Skippers. Dr Fakhruddin Padaria and his
wife Sara raised four children in Habib Park where they were for 40 years. "The
road was safe, we sent children out alone," says Sara. Fascinated by vagrants
singing for alms, they dropped anna coins in footpath beggars' open, upturned
umbrellas. Muslim and Gujarati tailors like Apsar and Apollo measure fewer
customers in spiffier online times, but keep cutting and drafting with diligent
accuracy. Jayprakash Thanawala of Apollo Tailors tells me his grandfather
Narsidas began business in 1942 "patronised by European clients lighting up the
road at Christmas with a jhamak that's gone". In an age when homemakers were
proud seamstresses, Hutoxi's father Edulji traded in sewing machines from
Roghay Building. Curious heads pop through dingy doorways while we hunt for—and
find—the E. H. Turel and Co. sign on crumbling walls. Behind, Jafferbhai's
giant biryani kitchen with wood-fired choolahs once fed 10,000 people. Though
flour power has forever ruled here, longest reigning is American Express
Bakery. From its pink heritage headquarters, bake smells carry comfortingly
amid Clare Road chaos on a breeze. Its tagline, 'We knead your needs', is an
indelible detail of the streetscape. Supplying bread to American ships of the
World War touching Bombay harbour earned the firm its name. Fourth generation
owners Emil and Yvan Carvalho recall great-great grandfather Francisco Carvalho
pioneer the enterprise in 1908 from a Grant Road outlet. Their parents Lilia
and Ross are regular at the Bandra and Byculla counters respectively. Emil
says, "It's dinned into us that every requirement, individual to industrial,
must reach doors on time, no matter what flood or riot the city suffers."
Littler landmarks still going strong include the Tapias' 65-year-old Fakhri
Stores and Yusuf Khokhawala's Jubilee Stores from 1949, peddling gifts,
trinkets and lingerie. Jehangir Mistry, from round the corner Rustom Baug, asks
me not to miss a trio of anda walas who've perennially hawked eggs piled
looking like ping-pong balls. The sidewalk pyaali seller hasn't stopped
scooping potato and liver masala laced with kokum juice, garlic oil, chillies
and chutney, from 1955 when his father Badruddin Islam arrived from Azamgarh,
UP, to concoct the mouth-watering mix. These are the aromas bringing Clare Road
alive. Its people continue living with clamour, clutter, colour... and the
peeling bells of Christ Church to wake up to on Sunday mornings.
Author-publisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her
love Mumbai and adore Bombay.
Uma Words are like leaves; and where they most abound / Much fruit of
sense beneath is rarely found. -Alexander Pope, poet (1688-1744)
