Love must lie in memories
Gunbow Street was a name I loved most when I arrived in Bombay in 1960 to begin my apprenticeship as a Marine Engineering Cadet.
I was 17.
Our college was in the Fort area, in the middle of many English place and road names: Cruickshank, Waudby, Hornby, Wodehouse, Victoria Terminus, Wellington Mews, Alexandra Docks and so on.
But Gunbow Street was the one that fascinated me the most. I had heard of it since I was 13. An uncle who had lived and worked in Bombay always wanted his mail to be sent to the care of Star of Asia Restaurant, Gunbow Street. The names payed nicely in my head, and fueled my ongoing passion to become a seagoing man.
One of the first things I did after settling down in the hostel was to go visit the street. There it was angling away from Hornby Road. And there was the Star of Asia too! I needed to be reassured they were real.
I asked around to find why the road was so named. I found no answers. I picked a reason from my own dreamy imagination of life at sea that was I frequently given to in those days.
I imagined stormy seas and hardy seamen. There were enemies and pirates. I had known from reading on World War 2 that even merchant ships carried guns.
So I spun yarns to myself the street had something to do with guns fitted to ships’ bows — which in case you don’t know, is the nose-end of a ship. I had room in dreams to imagine canons cast in rural foundries ,and brought over for fitting on wooden ships built in Bombay’s docks.
The name Gunbow Street straightened up and marched with a sailor’s swagger.
My story travelled with me everywhere and was aired whenever the company was jolly and the bee, chilled.
Recently, I made the mistake of checking up on my favourite road on the internet.
The road was gone. A little more digging revealed it is now called Rustom Sidhwa Marg.
‘And who was he?’ I asked myself with some anger.
He began his career as a man who organised postmen into a union in Sindh and Baluchistan and rose to become a member of the India’s constituent Assembly.
Ah, ok, maybe he needs to be remembered but why did they pick on my Gunbow Street? Because they thought it was a colonial name? I can’t argue with that, when nearly all similar names fell all over india for the same reason.
Within the next hour, I had another knock arriving on my head. It was never Gunbow Street. A fancy for English names in 1800s made the street lose its original name which was Ganba Street.
And who was Ganba?
Ganba Sheth was a revered ancestor of Sri Shankar Sheth Murkute (1803–1865). He was a businessman of great and wide repute. He enjoyed the trust and patronage of Arabs and Afghans. He was also a large-hearted educationist and philanthropist.
My anger over loss of Gunbow Street now deflected to Rustom Dinshaw who had usurped Ganba Sheth’s seat. If I can’t get my gun maker story back, I can at least speak up for Ganba Sheth.
Well, well, as one grows older, places once loved are best left to lie in memories.
I now live in a mild dread of being challenged by any one of the many I sailed with, to whom I had vividly spun tales of guns for ships supplied from that street.
Based on a FaceBook post by me dated Jun 22, 2021
