Carnac Road which commences from the eastern boundaries of Dhobitalao in its residential avatar was firmly Goan but of a higher income class and with much bigger apartments than those in Dhobitalao proper. Hira Building for example would have had homes of about 1500 to 2000 sq ft. These buildings in the 50s would have been 75 to a 100 years old but being of sound construction and subject to British building codes of that time, stand sturdily even today with little renovation.
The amazing story of Carnac Road would be the story of that rare virtue - Goan entrepreneurship. Dan Lopez's tailors shop converted to a pharmacy, Jerry Gomes' father's readymade clothing store Campbell's competing within the best of Bombay commerce, the Ramos' hat and uniform establishment serving the city's police force and the navy with good profit, another Gomes' "Dress Well" known by all Christmas shoppers in its time and of course Carmellos the catering people. Bombay catering back in the day was the fief of Goan caterers. Cobana's, Silvano's, MacRonell's, Medosa's and their like. Goan restaurants too were known throughout the city even outside of just the Goan community. Colaba and the Fort Area hosted the well known Sacru's City Kitchen, Kitchenette and Gabriel Fernandes' Chiquita just off Strand Cinema. All Goan businesses of the 50s were mostly of first generation Goans who took their family's future in their hands and with little finance and a lot of hard work and good luck, carved a niche for themselves in the big unforgiving city commerce. There were many Goans in the professions too, living on Carnac Road. In Hira Building like the Mascarenhases. The senior Mascarenhas was an Art Director for Lintas who wielded enormous influence in advertising. Souza-Roy of Aldona the lawyer I remember well. He wrote several articles in Goan and other newspapers and was a true social activist and a patron of the Bombay Tiatr. The school teachers Eric mentioned were quintessential Goans through whose Xaviers school classrooms hundreds of now famous Goan boys filtered. They came like coal and exited like diamonds. The sports coaches of the Old Lady of Carnac Road are remembered by boys throughout India and the western world not only for the love and skill of the game that Fr Fritz and Fr Arago before him inculcated but also the competitive psyche that stood them well when they went into the wider world to make their living and their mark. I am surprised every now and then to come across someone in the States or in Canada with roots to Carnac Road. The ancient Parsee liquor stores that anchored one end of the road were unique. In the day that Prohibition was in total grip of the entire city, these Parsee stores were allowed to stock real Scotch whiskies and foreign spirits which they sold to diplomats and foreign visitors. I remember the time when going from school to lunch at the many Goan restaurants in Dhobitalao, I would spend several minutes peeking in at the beautiful bottles displayed on the shelves with names that I read in Time magazine and Playboy. It would be 10 years later that I would get to go to the middle east to get my grubby hands on those bottles whose strange contents I would taste for the first time, sometimes in injudicious quantities. The other unique feature of the other end of Carnac Road was the Chinese community that monopolized the corner. They were poor people with simple Chinese peasant dress who sold all kinds of party and Christmas decoration - balloons, lanterns, crepe paper, firecrackers, magic dust and all the things that children love. I would drag my parents inevitably to that corner to buy some nonsense or other which seemed so important at that time but trivial now. Remember there were no iphones and nintendos then. Walking down that memory lane would not be complete without mention of the little kiosk like stores at the main Crawford Market Building, barely 100 sq ft each that stocked foreign goods of all kinds from cans to chocolates to shampoos to perfumes, so ingenuously displayed that anyone else would require about 10 times that space to catch the shoppers eye. Those were the days when no foreign goods could be bought anywhere in the country. I don't really know the source of those goods. A small portion may have been from customs auctions but the vast majority I believe were from Goan shippies who smuggled them in for a small profit. In my many years in the Gulf when I tired of shopping decisions to make for all the relatives and friends back home and the hassle of carrying them on flights, I would make a trip to this end of Crawford Market to buy those very same things at the same or lesser price minus the cartage. Right next to the Crawford Market and just opposite the Police Commissionerate was the Sitaram Building in which many Goans lived. Now emptied of Goans who have mostly immigrated to the US, it has become a big bone of contention between the Bombay Mafia who will make tons of money from sky high developments and its rightful owners the Charitable Trusts who have been bilked out of this precious asset under duress. The only thing preventing the development is that it will shadow the Commissionerate and pose a security problem for the police on account of any determined terrorists and snipers hunkered down. But Mafia money can buy a lot of things. Not the least of which is police brass who earn in a year what a hoodlum sometimes spends in a day. Roland. Toronto. From: eric pinto [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2011 10:41 AM To: [email protected]; Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994! Subject: WACI of Bombay, etc. Thanks, Rolly. It was shopping row for the upper middle class ! Parsee and Anglo cultured Ismailis dominated commerce, most were former students of our school, Xaviers. The stately building that was the "Court of Claims of Small Causes" dominated the block, and the very popular Advocate Tony Souza-Roy had his rooms next door. It was Carnac Road, now Tilak, the short avenue also home to GT Hospital, the Comm. of Police and our much loved Crawford Market where Parsee owned stores used magic to stock hard to find goodies like English chocolate and syrups, Swiss cheese and condensed milk. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Protect Goa's natural beauty Support Goa's first Tiger Reserve Sign the petition at: http://www.goanet.org/petition/petition.php ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
