Bombay/Mumbai guide from a native resident - book review
Prof. Saul Sapir always felt a great attraction for his city of birth and upon visiting India over 40 years later, he renewed his bond with this vibrant, colorful, bustling Metropolis.
A Hindu woman worships the Sun god in an artificial pond during the religious festival of Chhath Puja in Mumbai, India, November 10, 2021. (photo credit: REUTERS/NIHARIKA KULKARNI)ByDAVID HERMANUpdated:
If ever a book deserved to win a Nobel Prize it must surely be Prof. Saul Sapir’s remarkable Bombay/Mumbai City Heritage Walks Guidebook. This 447-page book, the exhilarating result of the author’s four-year dedication, is notable for its outstanding scholarship, design, production and general appeal and may be classed as a guidebook that is also a romance since it so tellingly reflects the author’s enduring love and reverence of the city of his birth. With its 14 separate heritage walks, its 1000 photographs, its 120 historical, architectural, heritage landmarks and sites, its 824 reference notes and archival sources, it is a riveting masterpiece for the reader, visitor or scholar blessed to have a copy to read or guide him. Sapir rivals and outdoes almost anything that the world of architectural landmarks and sites can offer which is why in my humble opinion this book most certainly is of the Nobel Prize winning caliber.
One may truly say that Sapir’s own life has significantly prepared him for an achievement of this magnitude. Although on the inside flap of the book there appears a small smiling picture of the author and a modestly brief review of his life, nonetheless it would require a much greater and expanded story of his life to explain his love and affection for Bombay/Mumbai and his unerring ability to cover so many different aspects of the city – its architecture, religious affiliations, culture and history and geography - with such impressive scholarship detail.
Born in Bombay, Sapir lived in India for the first years of his life. He always felt a great attraction for his city of birth and upon visiting India over 40 years later, he renewed his bond with this vibrant, colorful, bustling Metropolis. Fascinated by the magnificent examples of architecture, regal causeways and public spaces, blending in with the colors and smells and endless noise and teeming humanity, he decided to travel and research his own roots and the history of this amazing city at the hub of this compelling country.
His curiosity and passion for Mumbai led him to return some 20 times to reacquaint himself with the city and its architectural gems. He researched its urban fabric, walked its streets and alleys for endless hours with his camera and studied its history in depth, to provide the readers with fresh insights into the architectural design of the city, based on intensive research of archival sources in Mumbai, Pune and in England in the Bodleian Library in Oxford and at the Royal Institute of British Architects, together with comprehensive field study.
The impact on the reader, whether at home or on one of the Heritage Walks, is akin to listening to a majestic symphony and being totally caught up in its color, its rhythm and melody, such is the impact of this amazing guidebook, that is in fact an astounding work of art.
Prof. Shaul Sapir (credit: Courtesy)
Technically, the presentation of Heritage Walks is designed with the aim of sight-seer’s comfort. The map of each walk is placed on the left-hand page of the book, indicating the sites marked along the route. On the right-hand side is a brief overview of the walk, indicated by the numbers and names of the sites as they appear on the map.
As Sapir so succinctly writes in the inside cover: “Exploring the Heritage of Colonial Bombay is to walk its streets of architectural gems, its public buildings, fountains, statues, museums, markets and monuments in the Neo-Classical, Neo-Gothic, Indo Saracen and Art Deco styles. Though modern streets and buildings have been knitted into the historic realm, British presence still remains dominant in its structures and landmarks”.
As a matter of fact, it is the variety that make this city so charming, characterized by the interacting influences coming from the west, combined with local traditions, well reflected in its architecture.
The book explores the social and physical history of Colonial Bombay at a pivotal time in its emergence as a modern metropolis rising like a phoenix from a cluster of seven islands. No doubt, Bombay’s architectural boom during the British Raj is one of the most remarkable events of the Victorian reign which marks the city as being one of the magnetic cities in the empire – a gem glorifying the “The Jewel in the Crown.” The British founded Bombay on the site of a Portuguese trading station, but since the second half of the seventeenth century people from European and Middle Eastern nations, as well as very many from other parts of India, were drawn to the city, transforming the huge Urban center into a vibrant melting pot of different cultures, races and political and social affiliations. Termed in Latin – Urbs Prima in Indis – meaning Foremost City in India, Bombay, as it was known in the 19th century, was renamed Mumbai in 1995.
Whereas Sapir’s previous highly-praised book about the city, Bombay – The Jewish Urban Heritage, concentrated on the Jewish contribution to Bombay and its urban development, in the Bombay Mumbai guidebook the Jewish connection is confined to Heritage Walks 10-13.
An outstanding feature of the book is the author’s impressive ability to combine historical and architectural description, and bringing them to life for the reader with the aid of the excellent photos. Many of impressive sites are named and inspired by major personalities who stamped their presence indelibly on Bombay’s development, notably from the days of the British Raj, such as the equestrian statue of the Prince of Wales/George V, and the Royal Alfred Sailors Home and the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, The Gateway of India (on the cover of the book), and Victoria Terminus; additional Indian landmarks in Mumbai include affiliated sites such as The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Flora fountain, the Jain Temple, Kamala Nehru Park, Mani Bhawan (Mahatma Gandhi’s Residence Museum); Christian edifices such as St. Andrew’s Church, St. Xavier’s College and St. Xavier’s High School, the Wesleyan Methodist Church; and those connected with and named after important members of the Bombay Baghdadi Jewish community, such as, the Magen David Synagogue, the Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, the David Sassoon Library, the Sassoon Dock, the Sir Jacob Sassoon High School, the EEE Sassoon High School and Jew Garden.
The amazing book ends with 824 reference notes that strikingly confirm the author’s depth of research which he details in the Preface: “This volume is based on research which was carried out in the archives of the Indian Office Record (IOR) and the Newspaper Library, both part of the British Library, London. Additional research was conducted in the archives and library of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), London.
In Mumbai, substantial effort was devoted in the Maharashtra State Archives, formerly known as the State Record Office ( S.R.O.) located in the Elphinstone College building. In addition, many hours were spent in the archives of The Times of India, in the archives of the Gazetteers Department, Government of Maharashtra, Sassoon David Building; in the David Sassoon Library and Reading Room and in the library and archives of the University of Mumbai.
In order to supplement the existing information in the written literature an inclusive survey and intensive Field Work was conducted of Mumbai sites past and present, in addition to an extensive field study that focused on locating and exposing “hidden sites of which a few have already been forgotten during the course of time.”
The book also contains a warm approval from Pavan Kapoor, the Indian previous Ambassador to Israel, who writes: “I would like to congratulate Shaul Sapir on his second book on Bombay/Mumbai. After initially writing about Jewish Heritage in Bombay, he has now come out with an excellent guidebook with detailed suggestions for 14 Heritage Walks across the city. His painstaking research on the history of different monuments and buildings and a wonderful collection of photographs to accompany them make the book an essential guide for anyone keen to understand the development of this vibrant city.”
In short, this 447-page volume is in every way a triumph of scholarship, design and production, that thrillingly brings alive the history and majesty of Bombay/Mumbai and enables the reader to join the visitor in participating in the enthralling walks.
And above all, in producing this astonishing work which enshrines within its pages so many key features of Bombay’s remarkable historical and cultural presence, Prof. Sapir has accomplished something that is not just simply an attractive guidebook but more correctly a gloriously inspiring spiritual guide to Bombay/Mumbai to be treasured for many years to come by visitors to Bombay, its citizens and indeed the Indian nation as a whole.
The cover of Shaul Sapir’s book published by Bene Israel Heritage Museum and Genealogical Research Centre, India. (credit: Courtesy)
For further information and ordering contact mssapir@mail.huji.ac.il.
