It’s for a reason that purposeful shoppers, tentative tourists and the time-pass crowd congregate here, to jostle, haggle and finally return home, laden with calories and shopping bags. And that, on November 26, 2008, terrorists announced their presence in Mumbai with a deadly spray of bullets on this particular stretch. For even though it sits in the southern corner of a city that sprawls northwards, Colaba Causeway encapsulates the cosmopolitan, can-do, can-dance soul of Bombay. It is the heart of tourist-land — and filled with all manner of local landmarks and legends. Regal Cinema was the first air-conditioned theatre in the city. Café Mondegar installed the first jukebox and remains famous for its Mario Miranda murals. And a shady little eatery just off Electric House was the Bombay hangout of arch-criminal Charles Sobhraj — and the spot where he chose his prey.
Colaba Causeway was built in 1838, one of the early reclamation projects in this city conjured up from the sea. The broad strip of land was created to connect Colaba and Old Woman’s Island to the larger, H-shaped island of Bombay. Photographs from early days show a seascape filled with serenity and silence.
The Causeway was very different by the time I came along. It was a bustling stretch, book-ended by the Maharashtra Police Headquarters (the former Royal Alfred Sailors’ Home topped with a pediment featuring Neptune and his nymphs) and Colaba Bazaar. This was a stretch that I traversed daily on my way home from school. Already, it was a magnet for shoppers and tourists.
The shops were a strange mix of the eccentric and the wonderful. There was the narrowest, most magical bookshop imaginable, where I spent my birthday money. And a store of ‘useful items’ — pressure cooker valves, virulent yellow plastic stools, a collection of bottle caps in case you had a cap-less bottle. There was a huge cutlery and china figurine store that was always empty. And showrooms for companies like Binny and Bombay Dyeing, cavernous places lined with bolts of ‘suiting, shirting and dress-material’ where everything one ever needed was out of stock.
Then, of course there were the eateries. Silvana, where I stopped daily to ogle at the radioactive green pastries. Edward the VIII, famous for its generous glasses of watermelon juice. Paradise, home of plump chicken lollies, and hearty Scotch broth. And as famous for Jimmy, the cheerful proprietor, who greeted regulars with a booming “Kem che kaleja?” (which roughly translates into “How are you, Liver?”)
When we were college girls, Colaba Causeway was our daily hangout. By then it was full of hawkers who spoke Russian and Italian and stocked junk jewellery, kaftans, and hepatitis-giving snacks. We often took three hours to stroll the seven-minute distance — sighing over plastic earrings, export-surplus skirts; gossiping and giggling.
Shabnam Minwalla
Little wonder then that, while I was studying in the US, whenever I talked about home, it was the image of Colaba Causeway that popped into my head. When we returned to Bombay, my Chennai-born husband declared that if one must live in this city, then Colaba was the place. He worked towards it with determination and, after a gap of 10 years, I again found myself within strolling distance of the stern, matronly mannequins of Rajsi Bros.
Of course, Colaba Causeway has changed. The bottle cap and lonely cutlery shops have been elbowed out by Levis and Nike. Theobroma, Café Churchill and other trendy eateries draw the hungry shoppers. The hawkers no longer speak just Spanish and Russian — they now speak Zara and Forever 21 as well. But still, this corner of Mumbai retains its energy.
Shabnam Minwalla writes books for children. Her fifth book, What Maya Saw, is a contemporary fantasy involving a clue hunt, evil beings called Shadows, teenage joys and sorrows. And, of course, a shopping expedition to Colaba Causeway.
