Succumbing to the new mantra of globalisation, the once respectable and quiet suburban matron has put on skittish airs and acquired the sophisticated gloss of a Page Three socialite, observes Bandra resident, Sherna Gandhy

When I was a child, Bandra seemed to be the most wonderful place to live in, with traffic-free roads to cycle on, a huge expanse of (relatively unpolluted) sea to bathe and fish in, large flower-filled gardens to play in and even an ancient and crumbling Portuguese fort to explore.

By the time I was in college in the early ’70s, Bandra hadn’t changed all that much but my perspective had. I began to wonder what evil genius had prompted two of my great grandfathers to choose to settle in this neck of the woods from where late night film shows and parties, usually held in that Mecca of sophistication and glamour, South Mumbai (as it then was), were out of bounds, unless a kind friend offered the loan of a spare bed. Parents of friends living in ‘civilised’ Colaba or Churchgate had to be convinced that allowing their daughters to journey into the ‘suburbs’ for lunch was not as fraught with death and danger as an expedition into darkest Africa.

Today, to my never-ending amazement, my neck of the woods has become a ‘des res’ (desirable residence) for the trendy Mumbaite, with designer boutiques, glittering malls, chic restaurants, coffee shops (with and without hookah), multiplex cinemas and multinational banks opening every other day on any available square inch of vacant space. And, there are not many of those left.

Swanky apartments with mind-boggling price tags, clubs with entrance fees that would make their haughty South Mumbai counterparts blanche and ‘promenades’ and ‘jogging parks’ where hot pants and cool attitudes get their daily airing, abound. All this new gloss and glamour was celebrated recently in a two-week festival where art shows, cultural seminars, dance recitals, plays and — ye gods! — poetry readings, drew hordes of people and got high-octane media coverage.

It seems clear to me that Bandra has succumbed to the new mantra of globalisation. The once respectable and quiet suburban matron has put on skittish airs and acquired the sophisticated gloss of a Page Three socialite. If, in the process, it has lost its ethnic charm, its many eccentricities and its distinct flavour, its smart new inhabitants are certainly not complaining. Who wants to queue outside a smoke-blackened, little bakery every evening for oven-fresh brun pao, when you can lounge outside Mocha for a puff of the latest coffee shop accessory, a hookah? Dining in the Mediterranean ambience of Olive, surrounded by Mumbai’s most famous faces and figures, you might imagine you’re on the Via Veneta and a run in Jogger’s Park is no different from a run in Central Park, you are assured by those who jog in both.

There is a new energy and bustle, more prosperity and a certain plastic efficiency about today’s Bandra. It is entirely self-sufficient and can, in fact, stick out its tongue cheekily at neighbourhoods to the south that are being deserted in favour of this sassy upstart. My very sociable 15-year-old nephew doesn’t think living here is any handicap: what does Bandra not have that any other place has? He is a stranger to the excitement of preparing for an expedition into ‘town’, which was essential if you wanted to buy dress material, visit the orthodontist, see the latest movie or eat at a restaurant.

The Bandra of yore had something of the air of a village. Not a dirt-poor Indian village but a solidly middle-class English village where everyone knows everyone else, shops in the same places and does the same things for entertainment. We bought our wafers from a wafer shop run by three Parsi siblings whose enormous conks were the subject of much childish mirth, our school stationery from a little cupboard-like structure run by a Bohri (it was referred to simply as the Bohri’s) and our eggs from a young man who was considered to be off his rocker and therefore deserved our charity. The cake at every single birthday party we attended was made by a well-known, Catholic confectioner whose decorating ability stretched no further than rock-hard, shocking pink roses with leaves of a bilious green.

Entertainment was either a movie in the only theatre showing English movies (older residents said they had to sit with their feet on the seat in front for fear of gnawing rats but we only had to contend with the odd cockroach), or a ‘drive’ to Danda where mother and ayah (they were not called ‘maids’ in those days) spent a pleasant half hour haggling for fresh fish in the open-air market while we kids skimmed stones across an adjacent pond. Not until Elco Arcade appeared some time in the ’70s was a ‘shopping spree’ possible in Bandra.

Like any solidly middle-class enclave, Bandra was big on education and in this Catholic stronghold (it was said, with some truth, that if you threw a stone anywhere in Bandra, you were bound to hit a pig, a priest or a Pereira), everyone went to one of the many beautifully built convents. These were strictly segregated — no nonsensical co-education here — imparted a sound if unimaginative education and were run, as all convents should be run, by nuns or priests. The daily Hail Marys and Our Fathers are indelibly engraved on the minds of generations of Bandraites of all faiths without, in any way, imperilling their souls (Ms Jayalalithaa please note). I must have drunk enough holy water (straight from Lourdes) to float a battle ship and genuflected before innumerable altars but the only effect it had on me — a ‘non-Catholic’, as we were called — was to imbue in me a lifelong admiration for stained glass and arched windows.

If all this sounds a trifle dull, let me assure you that we had our pocket of glamour. Much before Shah Rukh Khan bought an old mansion in Bandstand and turned it into an impregnable fortress, Hindi film stars and producers (the term ‘Bollywood’ was not coined then) took up residence in Pali Hill where they built opulent bungalows (easily recognisable by the chamchas who always hung around outside) and drove around in flashy cars (which meant anything other than a Fiat or Ambassador). If you wanted directions to anywhere in this Indian equivalent of Beverley Hills, it was always given in relation to Dilip Kumar’s dwelling, as in ‘turn left/right, after/before, you pass Dilip Kumar’s bungalow’.

Much of Bandra’s transformation is due to the inevitable passing of time, which it is useless to bemoan. There is a paradox here, however, that I leave to the trendy new Bandraite to explain. When Bandra was indeed a pretty, well-maintained and uncrowded suburb, nobody wanted to live here except oddballs like us whose venerable ancestors were blessed with the vision of Nostradamus. Now that it has become overcrowded, devoid of charm and a civic nightmare (try walking or driving down Hill Road at almost any time of day and on Sundays you visit Bandstand at your peril), people can’t wait to get a toehold here and pay the most staggering amounts for the privilege.

That pretty much sums up globalisation, come to think of it: pay more and get less.

For the rest of the story catch Verve Vol 12 Issue 1 2004, on stands now!