MADHAVASHRAM
CELEBRATES A CENTENARY
“Those who want to create history, must know history”, states Ramesh Mahajan, the patriarch of Madhavashram, the storied lodging house that completes a century.
2. It was a German businessman, Fritz Schleicher, who saw the opportunities in a small lodging house operating from a one-storey building-to-let and catering to Konkan migrants in the city…
3. … and in the Ravi Verma Press, where Schleicher progressed from manager to sole proprietor, and young migrants from Karla trained in producing fine art litho works in large numbers.
4. Schleicher financed a new building for Madhavashram on 18 Parekh Street, Girgaum, which was inaugurated on 27th February 1921.
5. Mahajan’s father Parshuram, the founder, could now accommodate 120 lodgers in 40 rooms on the new premises.
6. Parshuram developed a three-patt seating for meals that ensured the lodgers’ shirts, dhotis and coats stayed clean. Topis were hung on hooks assigned to each, “Hee Abodh chi khunti, Hee Mahajan chi khunti…”
7. Amongst the lodgers was Gopal Godse from Sangli, who is said to have sent food to his brother at Qila Court, right outside the Fort.
8. In the 1940s, there was recession and the Mahajans were again tenants. The building was renamed Ravji Bhuvan.
9. Schleicher (1862-1935) had died at Dr. Bhajekar’s Nursing Home, another storied Girgaum institution, like the Ravi Verma Press and Madhavashram.
MADHAVASHRAM
18 Parekh Street, Girgaum.
25th August 2021.
Supported by:
Bombay’s leading lodging houses and eating houses always had big dreams.
Madhavashram Lodging House and Britannia & Co. Restaurant were both inspired by the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel- Madhavashram in its “U-type” building design, Britannia in its “very posh style”. The Taj itself had big dreams in 1903, professing to be “THE NEWEST, LARGEST, and BEST APPOINTED HOTEL in the East”. Formerly, hotels were happy being the BEST within the Fort locality.
Both Madhavashram and Britannia & Co. were built in areas without the Fort. Madhavashram in Girgaum, outside the Town where all the dramawallas went to perform. “Natak karna hai, drama karna hai, tum aisa karo, Girgaum mein jakar karo. Is liye iska naam Girgaum ho gaya. Uska Mumbai.”
Britannia & Co.’s founder was the first tenant of a building designed by George Wittet, in the newly developing Ballard Estate district. Ballard Estate, with its broad roads and thorough ventilation, thought that it would replace the crowded Fort as Bombay’s business centre.
Both Madhavashram and Britannia & Co. celebrate a centenary in the 2020s.
On the occasion of Sankashti Chaturthi, join the Mahajan family at Madhavashram for a special meal of modaks, varan bhat and bhaji this evening from the time the moon shines on 18 Parekh Street.
Madhavashram, 18 Parekh Street, Girgaum, 7pm to 10pm, 25th August 2021.
Photos by Philippe Calia.
