Maximum City's diminishing history

The metro's cultural and architectural heritage is becoming a casualty to modern interests

January 1986. The crowds are just pulling out of Rang Bhavan after four days of soaking in classic ragtime, bebop, blues and fusion at the Jazz Yatra Festival. Fast forward to 2004. The gates of Mumbai's 45-year-old open-air theatre at Dhobi Talao are locked for good, following a high court ruling on a petition filed by the Bombay Environmental Action Group, calling for its permanent closure.

Farhad Wadia, who started the Independence Rock Festival and who fought to save Rang Bhavan, rues the court's decision. "Shutting down the theatre won't only impact rock and jazz fans, the venue was also home to Hindustani and Carnatic festivals, Marathi nataks, tamashas and Lavani performances," he says. Pentagram frontman and Bollywood music director Vishal Dadlani concurs, “It wasn’t just about rock music. You had shows where troupes from all over Maharashtra and other states like Goa and Rajasthan performed there. "The place enriched the culture of the city and to lose it is a shame."

Ehsaan Noorani of the Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy trio, who performed at Rang Bhavan extensively during the 1980s as lead guitarist of the band Crosswinds says, "I respect the ruling but... I feel Rang Bhavan was just a target (of the cultural police).”

Rang Bhavan isn't the only casualty of litigation. Another Mumbai landmark, Cafe Naaz, which offered a breathtaking view of the Marine Drive to patrons who visited it for a cuppa and delectable Irani fare, lost the battle when its lease expired in 1996 and was demolished. What made Cafe Naaz so special? Suketu Mehta explains the place's importance in his book Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found thus: "Yahan se toh Bombay Switzerland jaisa lagta hai (Bombay looks like Switzerland from here)".

Paresh Janani, a financial consultant who visited Cafe Naaz during his teenage years, says he could relax there for hours without burdening his pocket and without being 'poked to leave' by the waiters. "I bumped into Vinod Khanna there a couple of times," he beams. Adds Kersi Mistry, "The Naaz was also a prop for many a romantic interlude in films." The former banker-journalist recalls one such between Sunil Dutt and Waheeda Rehman in Ek Phool Chaar Kante. "You can see them both running across from Naaz to the gardens on the other side of the road," he says.

The biggest cultural casualties in Maximum City have undoubtedly been the single-screen cinema halls, some of which doubled up as theatres that hosted live performances. Many have given way to shopping malls and large retail establishments, with only a semblance of a cinema hall at the top floor. Others have retained the architecture, but are in a catch-22 situation - they are operationally unviable and have no takers who could put them to alternative use.

Royal Opera House, built in 1912, showcased not only movies premieres but also live performances by both Indian and foreign theatre groups. Prithviraj Kapoor and Marathi stalwarts like Bal Gandharva and Dinanath Mangeshkar were regulars here. New Empire, inaugurated in 1908 and an icon of the Art Deco architecture that lines Marine Drive, has also shut down. Burge Cooper, the last owner of New Empire, says, "Over the years, the emergence of TV, followed by DVD libraries and multiplexes, has changed the DNA of the movie-going public. Single-screen theatres, which have large capacities, aren't able to attract enough people to watch movies."

The Maharashtra government planned to restore at least the Opera House to its original glory and authorised Abha Narain Lambah, principle architect of Abha Narain Lambah Associates, to work on the project in 2008. The exterior was renovated by 2011 and the building was included in the global list of endangered architectural sites the following year. In January 2013, Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee (MHCC) approved plans to restore and revamp the interiors. However, Cooper is non-committal about the fate of New Empire.

Could the future of these four landmarks have been different? There are varying views. Cafe Naaz was not protected under Mumbai's heritage laws, so legally speaking, very little could have been done to save it. Lambah believes Irani cafes are a dying breed anyway because of a generational shift in families. The younger generations do not want to continue with the business.

Shyama Kulkarni, member of Action for Good Governance and Networking in India, believes Cafe Naaz did have a future because it wasn't a run-of-the-mill Irani cafe but had its own special status. She says, "If the citizens wish to protect and preserve any structure of cultural importance, then they will have to fight."

Architect Parul Kumtha of Nature Nurture, an architectural firm that creates designs to conserve natural heritage, believes Mumbai's iconic structures can be saved by putting them to adaptive uses. "NGMA (National Gallery of Modern Art) was formerly the Cowasji Jehangir Hall and part of the Royal institute of Science," she says. "Jaisalmer Fort and Udaipur Palace house restaurants and hotels today but continue to be heritage structures. So will Rang Bhavan if it becomes a cultural centre."

However, the history of a building is not to be found in its external architecture alone. Imagine New Empire retaining its facade but being used as a corporate office or a retail store. It is one thing to preserve the aesthetic history of a landmark, quite another to hold on to its romantic legacy. And that is where Maximum City is failing its citizens.