The sun never sets on this street
Written By
Ranjona Banerji
| Updated:
Colaba, this week, is bustling. The terrorist attacks have ensured that hundreds of people visit it everyday.
From a glorious shopping stretch to the centre of sleaze. Can Mumbai’s most famous street use this chance to reinvent itself, wonders Ranjona Banerji
Colaba, this week, is bustling. The terrorist attacks have ensured that hundreds of people visit it everyday. Leopold’s is buzzing. Two weeks ago, the fake jewellry and antique stalls and eateries were frequented by back-packer tourists who live in the cheap hostelry in the lanes behind. Today, it’s the Mumbaikar who wants to reclaim his city.
But Colaba is an odd place, always a blend of sleaze and style. For me, the first memory is of bedbugs. This is not Colaba’s fault but the furnished flat in which we lived for a short while in the 1960s was infested with them. After that, Colaba was a place of wonder and lights. All the fun shopping was done along the Causeway, from the only shop in Bombay where you could get foreign jeans, to the Kohlapuri chappal shop — still there — to the department store wonder of Grand Bazaar and the fabric and bedsheet shops which mothers found strangely fascinating. And yes, every visiting aunt had to stop and buy loads of hakoba from the hakoba shop. And shoes, though India had only two types of shoe shops, 90 per cent of which were called Bata and the rest Carona. Bata never fitted me so I was the only person in school who wore the other shoes. In the evenings, stalls selling fried fish would appear on one side of the road and the picnic started when the shopping ended.
When I went back to live in Colaba in the 1980s, much had changed. It was no longer Mumbai’s most glorious shopping stretch. Drugs and prostitution had taken their toll. In the 1980s, it seemed like half of Bombay was on crack and every bylane had wide-eyed spaced out men snorting the stuff. Colaba just appeared to have more bylanes than the rest of the city. Outside the hostel where I lived, with its strict timings, we watched the byplay of commercial sex workers and clients, for entertainment. When we had a little money, we went to the ‘Digs’, near Regal for cheap clothes — this later metamorphosed into Fashion Street — and to the Shamiana at the Taj, the old Shamiana, before the new dispensation sanitised and destroyed it (maybe once the hotel is refurbished that beautiful charming coffee shop can return?), where for Rs 25, four of us could share an unlimited Cona coffee and soak up some vicarious luxury. Otherwise, it was the Mongini’s chicken pie for Rs 5 on Saturday, when there was no lunch.
When I moved to the hostel at the other end of Colaba Causeway, opposite the bus station, I was enveloped in the smells from Sassoon Dock. The stench of fish never left you — your clothes, your hair, your very being was soaked in it. You could tell the seasons from subtle changes in the stink. But the Causeway was where you went for any kind of entertainment — food, cheap alcohol (these were the days before pubs were invented) and things to plan to buy. The junkie and backpacker onslaught notwithstanding, Colaba was still Strand cinema, Paradise, Martin’s, Kailash Parbat, Kamat’s, Olympia, Canteena, Majestic, Delhi Darbar, Sunshine Snack Bar.
It was in the early 1990s that Leopold became hip — it opened a “pub”. Good music, odd greenish lighting and air-conditioning made hip urban Indians flock to it. The backpackers stayed downstairs in the café area. The allegations of racism were about the lower deck. It remains, today, an odd place as I rediscovered last year when I featured in a TV programme shot there. Apart from the waiters and some of the production crew, I was the only Indian present. Like Goa, on the Lonely Planet-Rough Guide circuit. In the bylanes it seemed that paedophiles were cutting deals with pimps.
Colaba's sleazy side is best seen around midnight. Today Leopold’s is buzzing with people who want to see the bullet holes and those who want the beef chilli fry.
Colaba might remain trashy beads and fake gramophones. Or it might use this chance to reinvent itself and become the centre of Bombay like it once was.
b_ranjona@dnaindia.net
Colaba, this week, is bustling. The terrorist attacks have ensured that hundreds of people visit it everyday. Leopold’s is buzzing. Two weeks ago, the fake jewellry and antique stalls and eateries were frequented by back-packer tourists who live in the cheap hostelry in the lanes behind. Today, it’s the Mumbaikar who wants to reclaim his city.
But Colaba is an odd place, always a blend of sleaze and style. For me, the first memory is of bedbugs. This is not Colaba’s fault but the furnished flat in which we lived for a short while in the 1960s was infested with them. After that, Colaba was a place of wonder and lights. All the fun shopping was done along the Causeway, from the only shop in Bombay where you could get foreign jeans, to the Kohlapuri chappal shop — still there — to the department store wonder of Grand Bazaar and the fabric and bedsheet shops which mothers found strangely fascinating. And yes, every visiting aunt had to stop and buy loads of hakoba from the hakoba shop. And shoes, though India had only two types of shoe shops, 90 per cent of which were called Bata and the rest Carona. Bata never fitted me so I was the only person in school who wore the other shoes. In the evenings, stalls selling fried fish would appear on one side of the road and the picnic started when the shopping ended.
When I went back to live in Colaba in the 1980s, much had changed. It was no longer Mumbai’s most glorious shopping stretch. Drugs and prostitution had taken their toll. In the 1980s, it seemed like half of Bombay was on crack and every bylane had wide-eyed spaced out men snorting the stuff. Colaba just appeared to have more bylanes than the rest of the city. Outside the hostel where I lived, with its strict timings, we watched the byplay of commercial sex workers and clients, for entertainment. When we had a little money, we went to the ‘Digs’, near Regal for cheap clothes — this later metamorphosed into Fashion Street — and to the Shamiana at the Taj, the old Shamiana, before the new dispensation sanitised and destroyed it (maybe once the hotel is refurbished that beautiful charming coffee shop can return?), where for Rs 25, four of us could share an unlimited Cona coffee and soak up some vicarious luxury. Otherwise, it was the Mongini’s chicken pie for Rs 5 on Saturday, when there was no lunch.
When I moved to the hostel at the other end of Colaba Causeway, opposite the bus station, I was enveloped in the smells from Sassoon Dock. The stench of fish never left you — your clothes, your hair, your very being was soaked in it. You could tell the seasons from subtle changes in the stink. But the Causeway was where you went for any kind of entertainment — food, cheap alcohol (these were the days before pubs were invented) and things to plan to buy. The junkie and backpacker onslaught notwithstanding, Colaba was still Strand cinema, Paradise, Martin’s, Kailash Parbat, Kamat’s, Olympia, Canteena, Majestic, Delhi Darbar, Sunshine Snack Bar.
It was in the early 1990s that Leopold became hip — it opened a “pub”. Good music, odd greenish lighting and air-conditioning made hip urban Indians flock to it. The backpackers stayed downstairs in the café area. The allegations of racism were about the lower deck. It remains, today, an odd place as I rediscovered last year when I featured in a TV programme shot there. Apart from the waiters and some of the production crew, I was the only Indian present. Like Goa, on the Lonely Planet-Rough Guide circuit. In the bylanes it seemed that paedophiles were cutting deals with pimps.
Colaba's sleazy side is best seen around midnight. Today Leopold’s is buzzing with people who want to see the bullet holes and those who want the beef chilli fry.
Colaba might remain trashy beads and fake gramophones. Or it might use this chance to reinvent itself and become the centre of Bombay like it once was.
b_ranjona@dnaindia.net