Bharat Gothoskar has some questions for Mumbaikars. Have you been to Bhuleshwar to buy saris but never to Bhuleshwar temple? Have you tucked into a sumptuous thali at Kalbadevi but never seen the Kalbadevi temple?
These are not questions he asks flippantly; they are closely connected with his life’s purpose. He organises heritage walks for Mumbaikars, which go beyond the obvious. “There’s so much of Jewish, Armenian, Irani, Koli history in the city.”
His company is called Khaki Tours, and the brand promise is ‘Untold Stories of Mumbai.’ Mr. Gothoskar (42) takes that claim seriously. A lot of people have come up to him and said, “You’ve changed the way we look at our city,” and he credits his father, a former journalist, with inspiring him to do that. “He would say, in Marathi, when you create anything, there should always be suras ani chamatkari : it should be juicy and magical.”
Part of his technique is getting his audience to relate to what they’re seeing, to get involved. On the steps of the Town Hall, he will ask, “Have you seen the movie Inferno ?” The answer is usually yes, and so he will then tell them that the movie is based on Dante’s Divine Comedy . And then he asks them, “Do you know the original manuscript is in this building?” Instant awe! A lot of institutions that are an integral part of the city’s heritage have become ‘geriatric,’ he says. “I’m trying my best to put some sex appeal here, so I can attract youngsters.”
Baby steps
Mr. Gothoskar wasn’t always a heritage professional. A mechanical engineer and an MBA, he worked for over 16 years in marketing. But, he says, “I always had this thought that conservation should be taken to the people. In India, it is still very elitist.” He began conducting walks, “for the heck of it”. Somebody would say, “Show us Girgaum,” and he would oblige. He began imagining how he could take his friends around in a military jeep and show them heritage buildings. He scribbled a name down, Khaki Tours — based on his “obsession with everything military” — created a blog… and then did nothing about them for the next few years. That was around 2010.
In 2015, a woman phoned: she had heard about his Banganga walk; would he repeat it. Mr. Gothoskar had begun a new assignment in a new sector, and life was hectic, so he demurred. But she was persistent, so he decided to gather a group. He made a Facebook event page: Banganga Parikrama. Around 30 people showed up. Six months later, he was asked to do a Lalbaug walk during the Ganapati festival. Then a walk in Gamdevi. The frequency increased: once a month; twice a month; every weekend; two walks a weekend; even two walks a day. Still, he never took the plunge. His wife, a senior executive with a multinational bank, gave him the support he needed. “She said, ‘I don’t want you to look back when you turn 60 and say, ‘I should have done it when I was in my 30s or 40s’. If it doesn’t work you can always come back to the corporate world.” So he quit in 2016 as Head of Marketing, Mahindra Lifespaces.
Striding forth
He already had a lot of the knowledge he needed, the hunger for more, and the gift of the gab. All he needed was, literally, the right vehicle. So he got a jeep — “a plain Jane white Bolero” — spruced up by a colour consultant he once worked with, which took three or four months, and he was ready to hit the road. It was initially unsettling not to have a steady salary, but he is now “comfortable”. In two years, he has conducted 100 walks. He does wish he had started earlier, though. “Sadly, I am a product of the 1990s, when most opted for medicine or engineering. I should have taken history, or architecture.”
It’s not just the walks now. Online and offline, all he’s doing is take heritage to the widest possible audience. “I’m a marketer at the end of the day. So I know how to mass-base things.” He wants to start a reference library for anyone who wants to research Mumbai. Then there’s the heritage consultancy arm; conservation architects have approached him to raise awareness. One of these is the Mumbai Pyau Project, which will work towards the conservation of drinking water fountains. He is also working with schools and companies, and is looking at the outbound space. He plans a hub-and-spoke model: a hub, an anchor, like a café, from where his walks will go out in all directions. And merchandise. And training others to conduct the walks. And a lecture series, workshops, treasure hunts. It’s ‘heritage evangelism’ he says. “Call it a mid-life crisis or whatever, but that’s how it is. Contributing in a positive manner but making it financially viable: this is my raison d’etre .”
And finance for all of this? He doesn’t want to scale up quickly to sell out: “I do want an investor. But I am extremely passionate about what I’m doing, so a person who wants to invest has to be equally passionate.” His challenges are “operational”. “I am a right-brained person. I have to build capability in left-brain functions. When you’re working in a corporate set up, there’s an experienced team that takes care of it. But as a person driving a team now, it has a different set of challenges.”
And there is a lot to do. “We are pathetic when it comes to tourism.” Mumbai has the world’s largest film industry, he says, but “we’re still making one museum for the past 10 years.” Maratha pride? “Why is there no amusement park based on our history?” He looks to London as an example of redevelopment made viable by retaining heritage. “Retain what is good in your port lands, restore them, and with that as the fulcrum, evolve the area instead of having glass and steel buildings which miss the ethos.”
Until he gets all his various projects going, the walks, and the reactions of his clients, are a great high. Like this BMC official, who said, “I’ve wasted 40 years of my life. Till I see my city properly, I am not going on a holiday anywhere else.”
