Deeper inside Mathar Pakhadi (entry opposite Lion’s Den), in Mazagaon, is the real East Indian village/enclave. It’s almost a cul de sac (with winding lanes) which ends with a (Catholic) chapel. My friends and I met one Mr Baptista, who spent a half hour with us telling us a bit of Mathar Pakhadi’s history – and how it’s all changing now. Here are some photos of the houses and the tiny chapel:
In Mazagaon, there’s a sort of ethnic enclave for East Indians who settled there when they arrived from Goa close to 150 years ago. The place is called Mathar Pakhadi and it’s very similar to Kotachiwadi near Charni Road Station on the Western side of Mumbai. A typical house in Mathar Pakhadi was made of wood and wrought iron, with tiled roofs, in old Portuguese style, but the entire locality is slowly becoming modern. Although some of these old Portuguese-style houses still remain, most of them have been converted to concrete.
As I entered Mathar Pakhadi past a few Art Deco buildings, I came upon a delightful house called Lion’s Den on the main road. It was early evening and the owners of the house and their friends where having an ‘adda’ (informal social gathering) on the porch. They let me take several pictures of the house.
Life may not be happy for people here in Darukhana, Mazagaon – but it goes on. The place seems to have a history of its own – of land deals and labour, of foolishness and fraud, and of livelihoods of a few million people over a couple of centuries.
In Mazagaon, Mumbai, there is an area by the sea which was used as a factory and warehouse for gunpowder, way back in the early 18th century by the British in India. The place, which was nothing more than a refuse dump before that, came to be called Gunpowder Road or Darukhana (in Hindi). Today, the name Darukhana still lives on, but the place is used for ship-breaking and as warehouse for scrap metal.
Among the ships lined up or berthed for ship-breaking is INS Vikrant, India’s first aircraft carrier. INS Vikrant was bought from the British in 1957 and has served the Indian Navy well. It was decommissioned in the beginning of 1997, was turned into a museum, and is now scheduled to be scrapped.
View of South Mumbai from Joseph Baptista Gardens in Mazagaon – early evening:
View of Mumbai Harbour from Joseph Baptista Gardens in Mazagaon – early evening:
playing with memories 