Colaba and Elphinstone…

All Elphinstonians met on the steps of Jehangir if we had to meet outside of College. This is how I was introduced to Jehangir Art Gallery and to the pleasures of tea at Samovar. When we wanted to bunk a lecture, and this was usually Prof. Bongle’s English or Prof. Munawar Ali’s psycho, we met on the Jehangir steps to decide on the next plan of action. I rarely bunked psycho though as it was one of my favorite subjects and I was also a part of the Nature Club that Prof Ali headed.

Jehangir Art Gallery thus became much more than an art gallery for me. We met there at 5:00 in the morning when we went to Gorai, we met there at 11:00 when we bunked, we met there at 3:00 when we wanted to go for a movie to Eros or Sterling or Liberty… we also met there when we actually wanted to see the art exhibition happening. Today, after doing my rounds of Rhythm House, BCL, and Causeway, I sit there to catch my breath, go through the books I have picked up, and just recall the old days.

Entwined with Colaba and my memory of college is Café Mondegar where we often went and I still go. Located at the corner of a lane leading to Gateway and just a few steps from Regal, this is one of my favorite spots. It is easy to miss its entrance which is hidden by a bookstore, a couple of junk jewellery stores, and a fellow selling all kinds of artifact from sea shells to glass figurines—random stores that form a part of Causeway which is the life and soul and the blood flowing in the veins of Colaba.

When we Elphinstonians did not meet on the steps of Jehangir, we met at the college Canteen. This was a distinctive spot and was distinguished by three things: constant fights and sounds of bottles being bashed, broken notice boards, and a very hassled canteen boy who tried to please everybody. On occasions when the canteen was too strewn with the aftermaths of a fight, we sat or met in the alcoves. Usually, we avoided the alcoves as these were occupied by official couples in a sort of unwritten Elphinstonian rule. We, free souls, met in the canteen to discuss the day’s activities, prepare any charts that had to be prepared, discuss Hamil Sabha and the next round of elections… As the secretary of McDougal Society, I was permanently busy putting up charts for the next debate, elocution, or JAM session and chasing up students who refused to participate. I usually had the worst experience with the science lot who would promise to participate and then vanish on the actual day or be buried in some experiment with foul smelling chemicals and Bunsen burners in one of the labs.

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