In a previous entry I wrote about the St. James's Court corner on Marine Drive, the building being owned by the Nayar family and with three 59ers living in it in the 50s.
In the 50s, the entire Marine Drive and the Churchgate region was populated by several Cathedralites.
59er Hasnain Chinwalla was also resident on Marine Drive. His photographs from his recent visit to Mumbai are truly outstanding and they are being compiled into different style albums.
He recorded this of the Mumbai Marathon on Marine Drive, which is just one of his outstanding compositions.
The one below certainly raised some wonderful memories.
This picture by Hasnain has from left to right, Viney's mother, Mrs. Sethi, Viney's sister, 64er Usha, 59er Viney, 64er Krupa (Usha's classmate), and 60er Rashida Anees (née Kajiji) who is married to 53er Anees.
59er Viney Sethi lived on Marine Drive in Chateau Marine.
This building was also a bastion of Cathedralites, with 58er Jaffar Husaain and his many siblings living there - with his aunt, who was none other than Nargis, of Mother India fame and who dominated the Indian Film screen for many years.
Viney's mom was also like another mother to all us 59ers, always concerned about us. Sister Usha was like a younger sister. So this one from Hasnain was like a family album photograph for me.
Thank you, Hasnain, for adding this to our collection.
Coming back to the Churchgate region, we had the Uberoi family and the Elias family on "A" Road, the Bhupinder Singh Anand family on "C" or "D" Road, the Ahmedbhoys, 59er Venkat Kurma, the Advani families, the Shivdasani's, etc., etc, all in this area.
I wonder whether anyone has done a study as to how and why Marine Drive semed to dominate the Cathedral School during the 50s?
Seems to be an interesting topic to research and also as to whether this trend has continued through subsequent decades!
As regards my absence from the blog for a couple of weeks, I had this input from 56er Ubi:
From: HS Uberoi
Date Mar 20, 2007 8:39 AM
Subject Thank God You Are Active Again!
Dear Jacob,
Can you imagine, no blog entry by you from 03/03 to 19/03?
You will have to take a pledge never to do that again!
Hasnain was not the only one to notice your absence without leave!@@!!
What an utterly delightful letter from Dawn Brown! Memories are made of this!
It should have warmed the cockles of every true blue Cathedralite.
Through your kind courtesy, I would like to say to her that I would be delighted to invite her and her son for a meal when they visit Bombay.I shall invite a few other like minded old Cathedralites and their spouses to talk of days gone by!
Take care,
Regards,
Ubi.
And 59er Anil Ruia wrote:
Hi Jacob,
Have not received any mail over the last week.
Possible that it bounced since my mailbox was full as VSNL didn't remove my deleted mail.
By the way, I am not being able to access our group. Please advise. (Ed: Anil, the email address with which you must access the 59er Group is the vsnl.com one!)
Best wishes to you and family,
Anil
And our 50er Dawn was quick to come back telling me NOT to change the Seventh Heaven name to anything else!
Dear, dear friends - you do not understand how wonderful it feels to be in so many homes around the world.
So Barbara's email had me thinking!
From: 69er Barbara, Milano, Italy
Dear Jacob,
this is to say thank you for writing such kind things about me
and to say that it is fun to watch how people react to your blog, adding anecdotes, correcting dates ... like different voices of a choir, different instruments in an orchestra...
what however makes the difference is a good director
THAT's what you are!
love
a clapper /triangle sitting happily in the percussion's group, making noise, but keeping the beat!
Me, a good director! I never thought of my role as such.
Sometimes I feel I am intruding in the private space of other people. But, when I get emails like the ones from Barbara, Ajay, Hasnain, Dawn, Ubi, Anil - sitting here in the cellar hitting the keys of my ancient eMac, I often wonder if any of my computers, which date back from my 1984 Apple IIc to this 3 year old eMac, behave like the Windows PCs, I would really be in the soup.
As I always say - I am a computer idiot and would not know what to do should I get system freeze, a blue screen of death, or any of those things I hear from my Microsoft Windows touting friends.
So besides thanking God, I always thank Apple for giving me a computer that works and allows me to do what I am doing without depending on service men to come and fix my computer every few days or weeks. :-)
1 comment:
I can name two other alumni who lived on Marine drive: the late Kali Cawasji in Krishna Mahal and Maneck Khambatta, staying a few houses away, both 49ers and Barham House.
I would also like to add another tit bit.
The Parsi community is dwindling and many of its young ones are marrying outside the community. Most Parsi priests do not wish to perform the wedding ceremony of such couples. I am empowered to do so and do indeed do so. I was requested to perform one such ceremony on 14.03.07. in Pune. Anahita, the granddaughter of the late Col. Adi Tarapore, PVC, married one Aditya Dhawan. It was only after the ceremony that I discovered that Aditya is also an alumni. Several of his other alumni friends were there too. Was very tempted to sing the School Song!! Yesh
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