Though I was born in Mumbai, most of my early years were spent in Odisha and then Tamil Nadu. My family moved back to Mumbai only around the time I was in high school. So while we travelled all over, my siblings and I completed our education in Mumbai. Those days we were based in Kemps Corner, where my father had been given a company-provided accommodation. But when I began my working life, I stayed in rented houses in Bandra, before my wife and I bought our own apartment in the suburb of Mahim, a quaint quiet place with tree-lined streets. Our house was just off Tulsi Pipe Road, which ran all the way from Mahim to Mahalakshmi Race Course, cutting through the traditional Mill Lands of Mumbai.
Mahim and its surroundings have a special place in my heart and they always will. My wife and I began our life here. My inspiration for the Shiva Trilogy was born here, which has given me a clear sense of purpose. Above all, this was the place where our son Neel came into our lives.
Being a history buff, what I found exciting was Mahim’s connection with the past, which was incredible. Being one among the original seven islands which made Bombay (now Mumbai), it was probably the biggest island after Bombay Isle and Parel.
One of the earliest commercial footprints of the British in India was the Mahim Fort, which is very close to my house. The best part though, is that Mahim is a cosmopolitan area. Around us, there are ancient Hindu temples, one of Mumbai’s most important Muslim dargahs, beautiful churches and lovely Parsi baugs. The Lord Shiva temple I visit every Monday is just a 10-minute walk away.
But a major lifeline of Mahim is Tulsi Pipe Road, which runs parallel to the Western Railway tracks and connects it to the Race Course in Worli. This used to be the road I took for years to reach my place of work, located at Lower Parel. Those were the days when the mills, which thrived at one point in time and literally ran the city’s economy, were going through their final days. These mills eventually gave way to glittering malls and glamorous commercial complexes. I have literally seen the evolution of this landscape from mills to malls.
In their heyday, these mills saw a lot of trade union action. I recently came across a very interesting story through an online link on a book called One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices: The Millworkers of Girangaon by Neera Adarkar and Meena Menon.
It was 1939 and the veteran Communist leader SA Dange was leading a strike at Bitia Mills. Dange decided to invite Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose to address the workers. Tulsi Pipe Road’s modern office and mall-driven avatar was still many decades away, and the area in front of Bitia Mills was just open paddy fields. This was also the time when Indians were being forced to sign up for the Second World War.
It was raining hard that day, but the workers gathered in thousands to hear Bose. Apparently, all he could see was a sea of umbrellas. So, Dange stepped up and said that Subhash Babu wanted to see who he was addressing. Lo and behold, the entire crowd closed their umbrellas and listened to the rest of Bose’s speech in the pouring rain. That was the power, the charisma, of Bose, who is, in my opinion, one of the greatest Indians of the 20th Century. One who has been ignored, sadly, by modern India.
On October 2, 1939, 90,000 workers from Mumbai declared a one-day strike against the unilateral declaration of war against the Axis powers on India’s behalf by Britain.
Bitia Mills no longer exists, but it sure is surreal to imagine that Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose himself gave a speech just down my road. It makes this road even more special.
(The author is best known for his Shiva Trilogy and Ram Chandra Series. His upcoming book is Sita – Warrior of Mithila)
