Phoolwale hamaare khaas
- Meher Marfatia
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Why would some city flower sellers be favourites over others? We pick a personal bunch of reasons for all seasons
An enduring childhood memory that warms me six decades later is of a sideboard filled with flower vases. We were a family particularly fond of flowers. We grew them, smelt them, displayed them, enjoyed them.
Today, the city is laden with florists with names ranging from Mehek to Marry Me. In the years of my growing up we had just Bandra Florist on one side of our home and Khoja Florist further down.
Moving about to map different city precincts, other flower sellers have held appeal for touchingly special reasons. One of the best for me continues to be Dilip Salunke of Shri Sainath Flower Shop in east Byculla on Victoria Road (Sant Savta Marg). Stringing garlands of fragrant mogra buds – exactly as his grandfather Govind did – he exclaims, “How nice to see you after seven years.” That was when I had earlier interviewed him, for an article on the neighbourhood.
“This shop has survived mainly because of Rustom Baug and Jer Baug,” he adds, saluting the Parsi colonies a stone’s throw from where he has sat as a third-generation florist. “You will find me most stocked at Muktad,” he adds, referring to the last ten days of the Shahenshahi Zoroastrian calendar that honour departed ancestors before Navroze (New Year) dawns. He is, in fact, charmingly more familiar with auspicious days of the community calendar than many of its own members are (watch the video).
The scorch of April morning heat hits us as I chat with Disha Tai, Salunke’s wife who gently sprinkles a heap of flowers she clusters for customers. Tea addict that I am, no matter how sweltering the weather, I welcome the invigorating cutting chai ordered from Gloria Restaurant and Stores. It opened in 1924 at the corner of their mutually shared space in Alexandra Terrace.
Opposite the flower stall, the slim spires of Gloria Church lace delicate patterns in the sky. Built at Mazagaon in 1632 by Portuguese Franciscans, it has occupied the present site from 1912. Following my gaze admiring the English Gothic Revival-style architecture of this church, Salunke says, “Aay rasta ma ghani mast jooni building chhe (This road has many wonderful buildings). Gloria Church, Masina Hospital, Rustom Baug… Because of the clientele around, varieties we typically stock are gulab, gulchhari and gonda. The profits are shrinking. Business is drying up because many buy flowers online. I’m grateful for decoration arrangements given when the hospital has hosted medical programmes. But everyone around is a friend and that is the main thing.”
True enough, Salunke is a friend to every single passerby. He keeps a metal tray of chilled water glasses at hand – offering hot and bothered passersby instant cool respite. Turning to me, he says, “You speak to me in Marathi or Hindi, I’ll answer in Gujarati. Koi vaar toh lagey ke Parsi saathe varso raee ne hoon mari Marathi bhasha na bhulee jaav (Surrounded by Parsis for years, I feel I might forget my Marathi!)”
That he is no danger of, of course. But that’s cosmopolitanism for you, I think, as the sweet scent of assorted petals reaches my nose, with Disha Tai handing over a tightly ribboned guldasta she has been preparing.
The sunniest meme once greeted me at Khodadad Circle, or Dadar TT (Tram Terminus). “Haar ke aagey jeet hai, Dadar ke aagey seat hai” read the line on the ragged shirt of a florist drenched with perspiration. I can never forget him, though he remains anonymous to this day. We met while he was settling for the morning with baskets of blooms. He squatted cross-legged, on the pavement outside Harganga Mahal, to thread torans on the footpath fronting D Damodar Mithaiwala.
Of the four Indo-Saracenic designed buildings ringing the circle with singularly colonial names – Empress Mahal, Empire Mahal and Imperial Mahal – Harganga Mahal alone bears a desi name. Formerly Rustom Mahal, this was renamed when it changed hands in 1944. A watchman at the gate led me to Ishwar Singh Chowhan, who told me that the property was renamed Harganga after it went to his uncle Harnam Singh and father Ganga Singh. “Har” plus “Ganga”.
To return to our phoolwala. Raising a shirt sleeve to wipe sweat beads dripping off his forehead, he had sat quickly and quietly, despite being harangued by a long queue of irate housewives or their help from the Hindu Colony and Parsi Colony flanking the quadrant of buildings.
Frazzled from his daily morning commute on overcrowded peak-hour trains chugging late, he tried to beat back the fatigue while smiling valiantly to placate waiting customers. A trio of stray puppies tried playing pass-the-string when he swiftly unfurled a thread ball to tie lilies to roses. Meanwhile, shouts of “Chalo, chalo jaldi karo” and “Yeh kya laga rakha hai” grew louder.
Then it happened. Everyone grew suddenly mollified by the mild manner and good-natured smile with which he pointed silently to the T-shirt sticking to his chest in the cruel October sun. His little daughter had scrawled in paint these words – guaranteed to melt the angriest madam: “Haar ke aagey jeet hai, Dadar ke aagey seat hai.” And everyone smiled, disarmed. How could they not. I regret not knowing who that fatigued-but-friendly phoolwala was. Nor have I seen him there again. I should have at least had a name to remember him.
As Goodwill Florists will tell you, there’s everything in the name. Extraordinary warmth marked the rapport flower lovers enjoyed with Alphonso Pinto, who started Goodwill General Store at Breach Candy in 1947. Ten years after that, it turned into the floral haven it remains. His son Lancy and daughter-in-law Priscilla smile as they fill vases with soft foliage and beautiful blooms (watch the video).
A remark Alphonso often quoted keeps them inspired: ‘The richest home is incomplete without fresh flowers.’ Seasonal sprigs to pretty perennials, from Bhuleshwar to Mahableshwar, brim in buckets full of liliums, roses, carnations, gladioli, roses, chrysanthemums, orchids and Priscilla’s favourite Sweet Williams.
“People come to us for quality, though a dozen flower outlets now crowd our area,” says Lancy. “Our clients were originally Parsis and foreigners. They prize punctuality and depend on us to deliver sharp on time in the morning.” My husband and I have happy personal experience of this. An aunt living in the building behind Goodwill, always gifts us the most gorgeously arranged bouquets on birthdays and anniversaries. All satin-bowed and colour-coordinated, they reach home the moment we wake.
Flowers, like blessings, have healing powers. As I sharply realised from the timely act of kindness shown by a phoolwala in Forjett Street, off Gowalia Tank. This episode took place on the staircase of Ruby Mansion, home to the distinguished clan of the Agra gharana exponents Vilayat Hussain Khan, Anwar Hussain Khan and Khadim Hussain Khan, who imparted their gayaki to several disciples. “Ruby Mansion is like a music mandir,” Anwar Hussain Khan’s son Raja Miyan told me. It was joked that a stone thrown from Ruby Mansion’s terrace would hit the building of at least one student of the maestros.
At the gate of Saibaba Mandir cramped in Haji Mohamed Kasam Building in the same compound, Billoo Phoolwala has plied his father’s trade for over 50 years. Devotees garland the Shirdi saint’s four-foot statue on a teak altar within. Nudging it is an image of Yogiraj Dattadas Madiye Maharaj who helped raise the temple in 1942. The philosopher was the maternal uncle of Gurunath Mayekar, whose family tends the temple.
Back to climbing the rickety stairs to the high floor of the classical music clan, I found each landing propped by limp scaffolding. Exactly then, I was seized by a dizzying vertigo attack. I am prone to and used to these. But why here, I panicked, halfway on an ascent that appeared interminable while every banister and balustrade swam around. An old phoolwala appeared from nowhere, delivering leaf-packed torans at a door. Watching me wildly clutch a banister for support, desperate for the giddiness to settle to steadiness, he chanted, “Om Sai Ram” and “Theek toh ho aap? Koi baat nahi. Baba sambhaal lenge.”
I could not manage the nod of appreciation I attempted. Not without another flutter welling up in the head. Yet, believe it or not, that attack cleared as unexpectedly as it had crept up.
On my way out, I did stop at the gate of the Saibaba Mandir sharing the Ruby Mansion
compound. A stream of devotees were garlanding the statue of the Shirdi saint as usual.
“Thank you,” I whispered. And added a small string of marigolds to the precious pile.
© Meher Marfatia Multimedia production & digital marketing: Danesh Mistry
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