In Ghodapdeo, Mhada towers shake up community dynamics

Two years ago, Fatema Vaghela and her husband moved to a high-rise transit accommodation in Ghodapdeo near Mazgaon. One day, they were sharing a pani puri at a roadside stall when a stranger approached the Dawoodi Bohra couple. “Don’t worry, you may be surrounded by Hindus but this is a very safe neighborhood,” he told them. The couple, who were from Bhendi Bazaar, a Muslim locality, felt reassured.
Sandwiched between Kala Chowki and Rani Bagh, Ghodapdeo is named after a local deity, who was worshipped by Kunbis and Kolis. The former textile mill area’s diminishing number of chimneys and chawls are dwarfed today by a dense cluster of 24-storey high-rises — each fitted with about 280 flats — that have come up in the central New Hind Mills Mhada Society. These are the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority’s transit camps and low-cost housing for mill workers. The new buildings have helped bump up rents and vegetable prices, increased the number of hawkers on the road, and changed the area’s demography — bringing in new residents and communities, like the Dawoodi Bohras, to the neighbourhood.
“The number of Maharashtrians in the area has declined,” said Anil Rane, who is living here while his Lalbaug chawl is being redeveloped. “Many joint families, who lived happily together in a chawl, prefer to sell the new flat and buy two properties in the suburbs.” He recalls a time when dahi handis dotted every gully and chowk in the mill district. “Today,” he says, “locals go to the suburbs to celebrate Govinda.” Traditional Maharashtrian art forms like tamasha and the dance form, lavani, also have few takers among the youth.
Twelve of the 18 Mhada buildings were sold to mill workers’ families. But most of their flats are being rented out to pay off the home loan. Many of the new tenants are Maharashtrians, a sizable chunk of them Muslim. Some of the new residents come from razed chawls in neighbouring areas. In one building, former residents of Reay Road’s Botawala Chawl have recreated their old lifestyle, using the corridors as common spaces for bird cages, water drums, clotheslines and sofas. During festivals like Ambedkar Jayanti and Ganpati, mandaps are set up in the compound and loud speakers blare late into the night. Last year, however, the Navratri festivities were cut short. “Someone called the police and so we had to stop the music at 10.30 pm,” says Shubha Karade. She suspects the music disturbed the transit camp’s Bohra residents.
The most prominent of the newcomers are the 550 Muslim families from Bhendi Bazaar, an overwhelming majority of whom are Dawoodi Bohra. They have been housed in four buildings in the Mhada compound, while their former Bhendi Bazaar homes are transformed into swanky towers with solar panels and terrace gardens. The Bohras’ arrival was initially opposed by Ghodapdeo residents who objected to transit accommodations being handed over to outsiders, while locals, whose chawls have been demolished, were moved to far-flung locations. But the issue fizzled out after two buildings were allotted for local projects. Today, they are full of praise for the community suddenly in their midst. “They are very nice, educated people,” says Vilas Sangle, a headmaster in a local school. “They keep to themselves and talk only to the area’s shopkeepers.”
Those who have ventured into the Bohra complex are in awe of their furnished flats and spanking-clean facilities, not to mention the high security. The Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust (SBUT), which is spearheading the Bhendi Bazaar project, has appointed a housekeeping firm to maintain the premises. An official from SBUT estimated that a staff of approximately 40 is employed by the four buildings including 18 liftmen and 4-5 watchmen. Packers and movers help residents move into their new homes, which are furnished with a carpet, cupboard, curtains, geyser and washing machine. There’s even a van that shuttles residents to Bhendi Bazaar and back for a nominal fee. This is open to all residents of New Hind Mills but few know about the facility.
Resident Hakimuddin Bootwala says the transit homes promote “cleanliness and an orderly life”. An SBUT official calls them “training homes” to prepare residents for their new lifestyle. Two prayer halls have been set up on the ground floor — one for the Dawoodi Bohras and another for the other Muslims in the Bhendi Bazaar transit camp. For Bohra kids like 11-year-old Maria Bootwala, the biggest boon has been a compound to play lock-and-key and hide-and-seek, which was impossible in Bhendi Bazaar's congested streets.
The high-security, self-contained bubble of their buildings might prevent some older Dawoodi Bohra residents from exploring the neighbourhood. But the younger lot can’t suppress their curiosity. Boxer Pervez Khan’s 18-year-old daughter, Nausheen, was fascinated by the Govinda pyramids. “I’d only seen it on TV before I came here,” she said. And Fatema Vaghela’s three-year-old son, Burhan, became a huge fan of Ganpati and Krishna after seeing the festivities with his 61-year-old grandfather, who relishes living in a cosmopolitan neighbourhood. “Burhan jumps from everywhere possible in the house,” says Vaghela, “shouting, ‘Govinda ala re, madke phodaila’.”