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My Own Mazagon' a delight for connoisseurs of social change: Captain Ramesh Babu
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Vishnu Makhijani | 07 Sep, 2021
It was one of seven islands that once upon a time grew mangoes for the
Mughals. With the coming of the British, the archipelago in which
Mazagon and the six other islands lay was painstakingly reclaimed to
make up the city of Bombay (now Mumbai) and was the "Jewel in the Crown"
till the focus shifted to the Malabar Hill downtown south.
It
is where one of the country's first major shipyards, now known as
Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL), was established late in the 1770s and which
today continues as a major builder of warships and submarines. The swish
set might have moved away a long, long time ago but the precinct is now
undergoing a revival with ubiquitous residential towers.
Taking
in this breathtaking sweep is "My Own Mazagon" (Indus Source Books)
that its author, Captain Ramesh Babu, who has just retired after a
40-year-career as an engineer -- 25 years in the Indian Navy and 15
years in MDL -- describes as his parting gift to his "karmabhoomi", the
city of Mumbai where he lived for 30 of those years.
"As a
history buff, I have conducted many heritage walks in the city, mainly
within the historic Naval Dockyard and around South Bombay, during my
stay there. I have also edited a coffee table book on the history of
Mazagon Dock in 2010 and authored a book for the Navy in 2017, as the
Bombay-built HMS Trincomalee celebrated her 200th anniversary," Babu,
who now lives in a Kerala village, pursuing his interests in social
service, heritage conservation, horticulture and writing, told IANS in
an interview.
"Given this background, a book on a historic
precinct of Bombay made an ideal parting gift. That is what inspired me
to write the book. And I chose Mazagon, as this historic island has been
largely ignored by chroniclers of Bombay. It is also the place that I
have walked around the most, discovering, for almost 15 years," added
Babu, whose career in MDL started in the Submarine Design Department,
looking after the Scorpene (P75) project, prior to which he was Chief
Engineer on the INS Mumbai guided missile destroyer apart from serving
on various other warships.
He found flashes on the history of
Mazagon when he was editing the coffee table book and that got him
interested in the bigger story.
"I picked up more books on
Bombay, but only found passing mention of Mazagon in them. But these
books had references from many 18th, 19th and early 20th century books
and documents, mainly authored by Europeans. I used the internet to
access them, as they are scanned and preserved in libraries and archives
in different parts of the world, all the way from Bombay to Scotland,"
Babu explained.
"Thus, I was able to get plenty of information
from secondary sources like scanned old books, newspapers and gazettes.
That was enough to write most of the chapters," he explained.
"It
was a challenge to make the chapter on Mazagon walks, where the author
and reader walk the streets and lanes of Mazagon with maps to visit
heritage structures and explore their history. That was made possible
through several walks with well informed locals like Rafique Baghdadi
and Stanislaus Baptista," he said.
Several well-known
historians, architects, town planners, priests, teachers, shop-owners
and residents also gave him valuable inputs, while the accurate maps in
the chapter were prepared by urban designer Chinnu S Kumar and her
students Rizma Feros, Varada TK and Sarat Raj.
It's a fascinating journey that the book unfolds for connoisseurs of social change.
Once
inhabited by agricultural communities like the Kolis, Bhandaris and
Agris, Mazagaon remained so under the Portuguese, fetching them the
highest revenue among all the islands of Bombay. Falling into British
hands through a disputed dowry deed, Mazagon retained its identity as an
island for many more years with its own fort, dock, churches and even a
gunpowder factory.
Then, like the other islands of the
archipelago, Mazagon too got merged into a single entity called Bombay.
But that did not diminish the importance of this place, which soon
became a sought-after suburb of British Bombay, patronised by the rich
and famous. They connected up Mazagon to the rest of the Urbs Prima in
Indis (The First City In India) with tramways and railways, and
extensively reclaimed the waterfront to expand the dock and harbour to
berth and build sail-ships and steamers that conveyed colonial commerce.
It is from Mazagon that steamers sailed with cotton and opium;
and Eliza, the lover of a romantic novelist eloped with a seafarer. It
is here that a Hanging Garden was built, and an East Indian gaothan (for
resettlement of villagers) came up. It is here that Christian
missionaries set up churches, schools and orphanages, and an unlikely
nawab built a mosque and a tank.
It is here that justice was
dispensed for crimes committed in many parts of Bombay. It is here that
dockworkers built the only standing Chinese temple in Bombay, and
darghas came up for saints who never came here to preach their faith. It
is also here that are laid to rest the Aga Khan I, Ruttie Jinnah (the
wife of Muhammad Ali Jinnah) and Hindi cinema's Tragedy Queen Meena
Kumari.
"Mazagon's decline as a sought-after suburb of British
Bombay started as Malabar Hill and other more attractive destinations
came up. Soon it turned into a place with many small industrial units
and many abandoned mansions. That trend continued, with only the dock,
some schools, places of worship and government offices continuing here
from the British days," Babu said.
"Recently, Mazagon has
become an attractive place for the neo-rich middle class from all over
the district, who, with some help from the BMC and the builder's lobby,
are pulling down heritage structures to build residential towers, and
re-naming roads and locations for political reasons," he added.
Many
early residents like the East Indians, Parsis and Ismaili Muslims are
moving away and the Chinese, Jews, Anglo-Indians, Luso-Indians and
Pathans have almost vanished, "leaving their history and residences
behind, to be rubbed off and built over by the neo-rich, who don't seem
to have much concern for the history, heritage and even the ecology and
environment of Mazagon," Babu lamented.
"This mindset should
change, and the new residents should study history, preserve the
heritage and environment and learn to co-exist with them. This book is
an effort to encourage them," he asserted.
With the bulk of
Indian Navy establishments, barring perhaps the HQ of the Western Naval
Command eventually moving down south to Karwar, where Asia's largest
naval base is being built, how does he see the future of MDL?
"There
will be no impact on MDL, as the shipyard will continue to build ships,
sustaining the earliest organised industry of Bombay. I can foresee MDL
expanding and setting up shipbuilding facilities at Nhava, across the
bay, as the Navy will demand larger ships in future. These ships and
also the submarines built here will be based at naval bases all around
the peninsula, like the Shivalik class frigates presently being based at
Vishakhapatnam and Scorpenes planned to be based at Karwar.
What next? What's his next project?
"I
have moved down south to settle in my village and spend time with my
ailing mother, who has been my inspiration, right through my life. I
will also use the time in the village to grow some fruits and flowers,
guide and help village kids, and continue writing. Some projects,
including a book on battleships built in Bombay for the Royal Navy, and
an anthology of village stories, are playing in my mind," Babu
concluded.
(Vishnu Makhijani can be reached at vishnu.makhijani@ians.in)
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