Bora bazar

Bora Bazar today is a little sliver of an Indian part of town built at the northern end of the old British Fort George after it was brought down in 1862 to make space for a town which had to grow as it suddenly became the world’s business center. The civil war in the USA had interrupted its cotton exports, and ships out of Mumbai filled the market gap with cotton grown in Maharashtra. The sudden prosperity led to intense land speculation. A large part of south Mumbai is a remnant of that economic bubble.

… cotton mill chimney stacks, non-Gothic towers, skyscrapers, shanty settlements and domestic vernacular dwellings …

Bombay- The Cities Within, Sharada Dwivedi and Rahul Mehrotra

Caught between the British Neo-Gothic and Indo-Saracenic district which came into being to the north, outside the old fort wall, and the Neo-Gothic to Art Deco structures of the banks, insurances and other big businesses to the south, at the center of the old fort, Bora Bazar is one of what Sharada Dwivedi called the little cities within the megapolis.

With a population similar to Iceland, this kilometer square area is well known to people looking for cameras and accessories or for varieties of paper, whether for writing, printing, wrapping, or origami. I know this area well, with its little shops and eateries, but on Tuesday’s walk, I was surprised by the number of temples I saw. Coming from the south the first major sight is the imposing European-influenced Maneckji Seth Agiary. Parsi temples are closed to all but the 58,000 (and rapidly decreasing) Parsis spread across the world. This is all that remains of the religion embraced by an empire that stood across the middle of the Eurasian continent during ancient recorded history. I’m quite fascinated by the Persian sphinx. Was it borrowed from Egypt? Or did it come to both from the Sheddu and Lamassu of the Assyrians?

On Perin Nariman Street, across from the fire temple, was the Arya Samaj building. The sect was founded at the end of the 19th century CE, and the building looks like it was from the beginning of the 20th; not very picturesque. I walked on, and turned right on Dwarkadas Lane, heading for a building on Modi Street which I’ve photographed before. I’d never seen its doors open before. Now that it was, I realized that it was a temple. I peered in past the chap standing at the door deep in prayer. The interior was lavishly painted. I must go back when I’m carrying a camera better than my phone. The exterior paintings now made sense to me, they are dwarapalas.

I walked on Modi Street for a block, turned left on to Manohardas Street, walked past that old favourite, Pancham Puriwala (the tiny but restaurant is open for business again) and then, just as I turned right on Bora Bazar Street, I saw a Shiva temple on my right. On the wall outside was one of the most inventive representations of Ganesha that I’ve seen: melding his image with that of his banana bride.

I turned right on to Mangesh Shenoy Street, heading for Dadabhai Naoroji Road, and at the curve of the lane there was a Balaji temple. The mace, the discus, and the lotus in the hands of the statues would be a giveaway, even if the name of the presiding deity was not written on the signboard above the entrance. After all, another name for Vishnu is Padmapani, the one who holds a lotus.

On Perin Nariman Street I’d stopped to take a photo of two wide arches leading into what once must have been an impressive mansion. One of the arches now hid a doctor’s clinic, which seemed closed. When a woman came up to it and fumbled in her handbag I thought she was going to open up the place. Interestingly, although the doors were closed, the doctor was at work inside. Someone opened the door for her and she slipped in. The door closed again behind her. It was over in seconds, and it looked like a cloak-and-daggers operation.

Vishnu Decorators was equally interesting. On Mangesh Shenoy Street I came to a halt at the pink door. The guy inside looked at me sadly and said “I’m not working today.” I nodded sympathetically and walked on. So many people, so many temples. I would have been surprised if there weren’t a few oddities.