One neighbourhood, two worlds

There is one Santacruz that is quiet, leafy and idyllic (with apologies to denizens of the east, we’re talking only of the west here).

There is one Santacruz that is quiet, leafy and idyllic (with apologies to denizens of the east, we’re talking only of the west here).

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Where the same postman has been coming to your house for the last 20 years, where the friendly neighbourhood grocery store will drop off deliveries at your neighbour’s or friend’s homes if you aren’t around, where bungalows still exist, you can talk to your neighbour across the road from your balcony, still walk your dog without you or the dog getting run over and where ‘Vaanda nahi’ (No problem) is the general mantra.

There is another Santacruz that’s throbbing and constantly keeping up with the Joneses. Where, in a matter of just two years, Fab India, Catwalk, Esbeda, Episode and more such brand names have opened shop.

Where, within a radius of a few feet, one can find sizzlers (Yokos), pastas (Restaurant 5), Chinese (Fat Kong) and where the Milan subway, once known for its water-logging during the monsoon, now has its own multiplex and mall.

It is the Santacruz where you’ll find what must be Mumbai’s longest row of florists. And where foreign goods were freely available before they started appearing in your neighbourhood kirana store. We’re talking of course of the Willingdon store (which was a toy-and-books store till 1992) on SV Road. Abhishek Bachchan would troop in here with his mother Jaya, to get his favourite chewing gum, we hear.

There is still another Santacruz, tucked away in Hasanabad lane, where one can get essentials at wholesale rates, where Jackson’s toilet paper costs a mere Rs 240 for a pack of 10 (the MRP is Rs 45 for one roll, so do the math), where a Big Bazaar still can’t match the rates at the Maharashtra Gruha Vastu Bhandar (the corner shop in the Masjid lane). Here, everything that is available in Hong Kong is also available at Santacruz station.

When Vasundhara Sanghi, a hard-core townie, moved to Santacruz (west) 15 years ago, her friends thought it was probably for the sea-view. After all, what other reason could one have to move to the boonies? Sanghi didn’t exactly get the view, but what she got was a building with one of those rare open stairways. (In fact, her building and flat in Cosmos building on Main Avenue have both been used in Bollywood films Jhankaar Beats and Barah Anna).

Sanghi also found was a mini-Crawford market in the area around Santacruz station. “There is this joke among my friends that everything I buy — whether it’s garbage bags, clothes, accessories, snacks and savouries, Christmas decorations, electrical equipment, cutlery, and even my Corningware — comes from the around Santacruz station,” she laughs.

Marie Correa, a resident of Marie Ville at Main Avenue and one of the oldest residents in the neighbourhood (she was born in 1926), reminisces, “When my father moved here in 1920, there was no road and we had to build a road around our house to get by.

From our house, we could see all the way to Juhu beach and often walked there and back for a picnic, with our hampers.” In fact, she laughs, “My mother would look out of the window in the morning and say, ‘The boats have just come; time to send the maid for some fresh fish.’ ” Correa’s father was one of the founding members of the Willingdon gymkhana on Church Avenue and the St Teresa’s school, in the neighbourhood.

Sanghi, who has recently moved to Khar, says of Santacruz, “I can still walk my dog there, even though there are more bungalows coming down and more high-rises coming up.

There is a certain sadness about the area losing the essence of what it once was. But who am I to judge? I, too, have moved to a high-rise which was once a bungalow.”

A weekly column that looks at how a pioneering or iconic structure has changed the face of a locality.