Kala Ghoda, a haven for amblers

Sometime in the late 70s when I was a student at the Elphinstone College I happened to be walking on the pavement outside Rhythm House with a friend. Somewhere along the way we encountered a small-built dark man who insisted on striking up a conversation. He was an artist, he claimed, and invited us to visit his studio to look at his paintings. Full of trepidation but possessing too the recklessness peculiar to teenagers, we followed him. He led us up the stairs of an old building and into a large, gloomy room, dusty and furnished with some sagging pieces of furniture and utensils. On one side there were stacks of canvases which he pulled out and displayed for us. There were several paintings, flowers, some nudes, all in broad rough strokes. We didn’t know what to make of them. His name was distinctly familiar but to our untrained eyes the works could have been masterpieces or terrible kitsch. It was only years later, while reading the obituaries at the time of his death that I realised the significance ofour chance acquaintance. The man of course was K H Ara, and place he had taken us to was the Artist’s Centre on Rampart Row.

In a way the experience wasn’t at all surprising. It was the kind of thing that one could expect to happen in Kala Ghoda because it was that kind of place: creative, leisurely, and above all, unpretentious. On one side there was the Elphinstone College with its distinguished faculty and eclectic student community; next to it the David Sassoon Library, seemingly a remnant from another age. Across the street was the Prince of Wales Museum, the Jehangir and Chemould Art galleries, Samovar, Max Mueller Bhavan, Thackers bookshop, Wayside Inn, and Rhythm House. At one edge of this triangle was a street mall selling export rejects — later to be relocated and known as `Fashion Street’ — and on the other edge was Ethnic Heart selling curios and clothes picked up from remote places in the country. The region provided a haven for the ambler, one that probably had no equivalent in the city. To be there meant to submit to an unhurried pace of life, a pace that aided contemplation and enrichment not of the material butthe cultural kind.

Some things have changed over the years. The Thackers bookshop has closed down. Rhythm House has been completely overhauled to keep up with the fast-changing demands of the music business. The Wayside Inn has undergone a facelift, as has the David Sassoon Library. And the dreary old C J Hall has finally metamorphosed into the National Gallery of Modern Art. Thankfully though, the changes have served only to enhance rather than detract from the essential character of the place.

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For some time now there has been a proposal to turn the Kala Ghoda region into an art district. And lately it has been much in the news thanks to the fortnight-long Kala Ghoda festival. The festival with its series of exhibitions, films and discussions received mixed reactions, but it did succeed in drawing scores of visitors, both newcomers and people who hadn’t taken a walk down there in years. There were fringe benefits as well, such as a refurbished Artists Centre, thanks to Christie’s which held a display of lithographs there. I think the concept of Kala Ghoda as an art district is a great idea. The city desperately needs such focal points not just for its own people but also for tourists who can legitimately complain of a woeful lack of direction in this throbbing metropolis.

If I have a grouse it is the absence of mood on the streets. It is one thing to have been a student there with ample time to discover gems in the neighbourhood. But for those who are not seeing the district through the familiar haze of nostalgia, it would be nice to have imaginative signposts and banners that, besides adding a touch of colour and contemporaneity, would bring a sense of unity to the various elements in the district.