Dhobi Talao, Mumbai. It’s more than 50 years since the talao or the pond went off the map and dhobis or washermen ceased to work here but the name, the neighbourhood, stands testimony to Bombay that once used to be and is now undergoing a rapid transformation. Off one of the exits of Marine Lines suburban railway station and the Our Lady of Dolours Church, lies Dhobi Talao. It’s a geographical area but it’s also an emotion, a mood, that’s hard to find elsewhere in the city.
Here, time slows down, unlike in the frenzied city. Beside the church is the good old Edward Restaurant, a well-patronised Irani cafe famous for its ‘Bombay style’ green kheema-pav and other delicacies. Among the regulars is filmmaker and photographer Rafeeq Ellias, 74, a known face in this area. We meet at the restaurant. He prefers this over the other Irani restaurants around the area that are a part of the “tourist circuit”. “Edward Restaurant is visited by the young and the old of this neighbourhood and that’s its essence,” he says. Ellias, whose films include Do Rafeeq in which he featured his namesake and film historian Rafeeq Baghdadi, has agreed to walk me, for Question of Cities, through Dhobi Talao. I could not have asked for a better walking companion.
Dhobi Talao was home to Goan Catholics and Parsis but many have been gradually moving out in the past decade. Yet, the area retains most nuances of its melting-pot culture. Food has played a distinct role in the culture of this area – Irani cafes serve fare like mutton patties and kheema pav that Goan Catholics swear by and the Christmas sweets that are sold here are made by Hindu Goans. Residents here say they never paid attention to each other’s faiths while growing up. St. Xavier’s school and college, among the city’s iconic ones are nestled here, hospitals and markets complete the picture. Dhobi Talao housed some well-known names in Mumbai’s history, one of whom was Ellias’ close friend, film buff and critic Rashid Irani, who died in 2021 at the age of 71. They used to meet here often. Ellias made a documentary on Irani’s life, If memory serves me right, which was released the following year.
Ellias introduces me to Ronnie, the owner of Edward Restaurant. The restaurant is a landmark in the truest sense. It is visited by residents and outsiders alike. Patrons can be seen having their famous kheema-pav, brun maska, and chai. In the early hours of the day, several residents troop in or amble in, depending on their age, as a part of their routine. They know each other, the waiters and cashiers know the patrons, they watch out for one another. There’s a sense of belongingness, a camaraderie, here that’s at variance with the anonymity and indifference of the city.
Walking in the quaint lanes and main streets of Dhobi Talao, even today as it gets redeveloped and gentrified, is like strolling in a Goan village. It used to house several kudds or resting rooms/houses meant for Goans migrating to the then Bombay or using the city to depart on long travels, mostly on ship. Several villages in Goa had their own kudd here. Jer Mahal, which houses Kyani and Co. has 22 functioning kudds today but such buildings are fast vanishing from the landscape. The price of a one-BHK flat is around Rs one crore. Most old buildings cannot be redeveloped because they are heritage structures or under litigation.
‘The Republic of Dhobi Talao’
Amidst the erasure and change, for old-timers, this is the land of childhood memories, friends, football and also music, especially Jazz. Ellias has dozens of stories of the place and people, and jokes that it is ‘The Republic of Dhobi Talao’ with its own sense of space and culture. He tells me excitedly how reputed music directors of Bollywood like Kalyanji-Anandji would scout for musicians in places like Alfred’s Bar and Restaurant to play their tunes. “Tony Vaz is a legend of Dhobi Talao,” says musician Mario D’Souza.
Ellias and Victor D’souza, whom we meet at the restaurant, recount having their toenails ripped off while playing football – barefoot. Mario D’souza remembers running out to the Backbay to play the game so many love here. “Nobody goes out to play anymore,” he laments. To the natives of this ‘republic’, Dhobi Talao starts from the foot-over bridge at Marine Lines station and ends on the street that houses the re-discovered gem Kyani and Co., a restaurant and bakery and the one that shut down, Bastani, just about encompassing the crumbling Jer Mahal which used to be home to at least 22 kudds.
To Ellias, the memory of Dhobi Talao also includes Botawala Building, where his friend Irani lived, and the good old Brabourne Restaurant that shuttered in 2008 used to be. From the street below, he points to the house on the third floor where his dear friend lived, narrating how he found a motionless Irani; Ellias broke down his main door because no one had heard from him for days. His sentence trails off and then he points to a well encased in high walls. “Almost every building here had a well, you know,” he says. “On weekdays, you would see a tanker connected to the well with a hose pipe – the building’s connection with the world outside.”
Illustration: Nikeita Saraf
On one side of Alfred’s triangular building, which faces Princess Street, is technically Dhobi Talao too, say locals. On the other side, is Dr Hormusji Cowasji Street which branches off into the main market, long considered the ‘centre’ of Dhobi Talao, where vendors and residents have known each other for decades. An agiary is tucked away here, easily missed if not for the board. “There are more agiaries than Parsis in this area now,” quips Ellias. On Princess Street is Mumbai’s iconic Parsi Dairy, which has been around for 108 years now.
Disarray and two Mario D’souzas
The co-existence of agiaries, churches and, lately a few temples lend Dhobi Talao its identity. One of the former students of Our Lady of Dolours High School is Mario D’Souza. In his early 50s, he has lived in Dhobi Talao his entire life. He worked in a plastic manufacturing firm in Parel but has now retired. Like many here, he has local legends and stories, and one of them is about the lane in which Edward Restaurant stands. “This lane is known as dukkar galli because it has many pork shops,” he says laughing. Later, my eyes fall on two ducks crossing the street to the pork shops – a fascinating sight in Mumbai. D’souza laments that the children in the neighbourhood now go to other schools as families have moved up the social ladder.
The world is shifting in Dhobi Talao. Some or the other old building goes under the hammer now and then to give way to yet another swanky tower. Old-hands like Ellias wonder what Dhobi Talao will be when this process of redevelopment or gentrification is completed. The Church and Edward Cafe remain the last bastions. But it’s not merely the buildings that are being replaced; the way of life here too has changed. Children don’t run or play in the lanes anymore and the ground floors of new buildings have businesses rather than open and inviting frontage. Zoomed out, Dhobi Talao seems to be emptying out, its quaint structures and community life ebbing away, but the old buildings do not fulfil the residents’ aspirations either.
This disarray has a face. We meet another Mario D’souza – a name fairly common in Dhobi Talao. A musician and teacher, he grew up and lives in Hamalwadi. The ground floor of JS Pereira building has been rented out to businesses while most of the houses lie locked; only four of 29 are occupied. Once, the building mostly housed Catholic families; now, Mario’s neighbours are Muslims, Gujarati Hindus, and Jains. While retaining their eating habits, they have seamlessly blended into the fabric of Dhobi Talao.
Both Mario D’Souzas live in houses that are Grade-III heritage structures in which only the interiors can be repaired while the facade has to remain unchanged. Many of the old buildings have common washrooms for residents and the houses are small with barely two rooms of 100 square feet each. The lure of houses with demarcated bedrooms and toilets en suite meant that several families moved to Mumbai’s suburbs, Goa, or migrated abroad though they retained their Dhobi Talao rooms. Both Mario D’Souzas say that they are happy to have continued to live in Dhobi Talao. The houses were tiny but the camaraderie meant, as Savio Alphonso says, “We grew up in everybody’s houses.”
Though the area is changing physically and culturally, its old vibrance lives on in people’s memories. Victor D’Souza, 71, who held a Portuguese passport till Goa was liberated in 1961, recalls Dhobi Talao with horse carriages, gaslit street lamps, ice carts with ice blocks sandwiched between saw dust, red post boxes and fire hydrants that were a part of street fixtures. The fire hydrants were buried by cemented roads, he says, but the vanishing greenery of the neighbourhood has made it progressively hotter.
Among the businesses that Victor D’souza has seen open and shut down are Irani restaurants and ‘Aunty bars’. The latter came up during the Prohibition era between 1949 and 1972 but do not exist now; only the few Irani restaurants endure. He recollects how ‘Aunty’s joints’ run by housewives who sold moonshine or branded Indian whiskey from Goa were not just businesses but often became an informal community forum.[1] The customers were occasionally people in high positions who loved a drink and the lady who ran the bar would request a job interview for her sons or relative’s children; many successful careers were launched here, recounts Victor D’Souza.
Alphonso and his wife Suzanne, childhood sweethearts who met at the Lady of Dolours Church, live in Perth now. They make it a point to return to Dhobi Talao on every trip with Edward Restaurant as their first stop. Their teenage daughter is a fan of the kheema pav as her parents have been. Their families still live in the area. He recalls, among the many stories of growing up in Dhobi Talao, how he suffered grave head injuries twice while playing and how he used to watch the neighbour’s TV from his bathroom window. The community is visible in their relations – Suzanne strikes up conversations with everyone she meets and Savio says, “We are nothing without our community”.
Food, and the future
Several communities like Goan Catholics, Parsis, Muslims and their establishments have thrived in this neighbourhood. The restaurants, though owned by people of specific communities, continue to be frequented by one and all. The Alphonsos still miss the Chutney Egg Potato Patties that Ronnie used to make. For them, as for most visitors to Dhobi Talao, there is a list of must-visit places here. This includes Gita Bhavan for puri bhaji and ‘Shetty’ sambhar, Badshah’s in Crawford Market for falooda and a streetside stall called Firdouz that’s open for only two hours for exquisite rolls, Mohammed Ali Road and Cafe Olympia for biryani, and Sassanian for chicken puffs and mawa cake.
Ellias and I troop into Sassanian, diagonally opposite the famous round mosque. Here, he tells me, that his dear friend Irani came covertly for meals during the COVID-19 lockdown, thanks to the generosity of its owners.
The legendary C D’Souza that reopened its shutters in 2023, a Goan restaurant that specialises in the state’s street food, is situated right outside Our Lady of Dolours Church. Now, it’s run by his grandson Jude who wants to bring back authentic Goan food to Dhobi Talao, in fact to all of south Mumbai.
Down Dr Hormusji Cowasji lane is another baker’s shop closely identified with Dhobi Talao – Paris Bakery. Owned by Danish and Behram Nejadkay, brothers in their early 60s, the legendary bakery is a favourite haunt for many locals and non-locals too. People come from as far as Borivali, nearly 30 kilometres away, to get their favourite snacks. Known for their brun toast, maska Surti butters, and mawa cake, Christmas means customers are offered a sample of the rich plum cake the bakery is known for. Even without the rum, it melts in my mouth.
The patrons of Paris Bakery belong to all age groups but the brothers know almost all of them. Porras Jassawala, a resident of Parsi Colony in Dadar, about 10 kilometres away, parks his shiny blue scooter, catches up with the Nejadkay brothers and tells me: “If I come to this side of the city, a trip to Paris Bakery is a must.” Zaver, whose family owns the famous Cooper’s Fudges and Chikkis in Lonavala, says that she enjoys the cheese sticks here. Others like Mayara (18), Iqra (17), and Mehreen (8), sisters who are residents of Kupwara in Jammu and Kashmir, drop by regularly when in Mumbai to visit their father in their winter break.
Dhobi Talao is a microcosm of Mumbai as it once was, it has some wonderful positive cues of how redevelopment of neighbourhoods can be planned to retain inter-mingling between people – neighbourhoods with a soul. The belonging, kinship and commune here, which defines many old neighbourhoods of Mumbai too, is what locals miss when they move out or when the buildings are redeveloped. It keeps a few like the two Mario D’Souzas and Victor D’Souza from moving out. “When I meet an Indian anywhere in the world, I proudly proclaim that I am from Dhobi Talao,” says Victor. Others I met during this walk echo the sentiment.
Even as Dhobi Talao gets chipped away building by building, to be redeveloped, its people and food are holding the neighbourhood together – for now.
Jashvitha Dhagey is a multimedia journalist and researcher. A recipient of the Laadli Media Award consecutively in 2023 and 2024, she observes and chronicles the multiple interactions between people, between people and power, and society and media. She developed a deep interest in the way cities function, watching Mumbai at work. She holds a post-graduate diploma in Social Communications Media from Sophia Polytechnic.
Photos: Jashvitha Dhagey
