Birds, Bollywood & the bells of St. Anne: In Cozihom, a glimpse of old Pali Hill

Old-timers have childhood memories of walking up

Pali Hill

, or as they called it then, ‘Khandala Ghat’. Mud paths, early morning mists caught in the green canopy, and at the top, a view of Bandra station in one direction, and the expanse of ocean in the other.

Hidden in the wooded dells and tufted hillocks were the old bungalows of affluent British, Parsi, and Catholic families. But locals from the plains and wadis had no less an intimate relationship with the hill. Some walked up to mass at St Anne’s Church, while residents of Pali Village would groan at the ‘loat’—rivers of red earth cascading downhill every monsoon.

By the late sixties, the bungalows were joined by apartment blocks. Among the first constructions were A, B and C blocks of Cozihom Apartments, built in 1969 on nearly three acres of land owned by actress Meena Kumari, and a small portion on freehold land, along Nargis Dutt Road. When blocks D and E were built a few years later—taking the total to 158 apartments—Cozihom rivaled nearby Manju Mahal and Metropolitan buildings in number of occupants. But with its large grounds, it remained free of their density. Today, when all of Bandra feels so crowded, within Cozihom’s sprawling green compound, it still feels like ‘old Pali Hill’.

Suman Bharadwaj, now 95, moved into Cozihom when her husband retired from the army in 1971. Fresh from a Banaglore posting, she remembers walking down the sharp incline into her flat, “I fell so in love with the view I forgot the climb back up.”

Pali Hill is still thick with laburnums and jacarandas; you can still catch a flash of a kingfisher. But older residents had some rare sights, like India’s finest ornithologist Salim Ali walking the hill, binoculars in hand, taking notes and making bird-calls.

Rarer still to spot were the film royalty who came to hide in the hill. Dev Anand, Sunil Dutt, Gulzar, Dilip Kumar, the Kapoors all bought land or homes in the area. (You can catch a glimpse of Cozihom in ‘Khoobsurat’ (1980) and 1975’s ‘

Mili

’.) Several film personalities have lived in Cozihom over the years—Deepika Padukone being the most recent—but the complex has always housed all sorts.

Journalist Sameera Khan recounts how her father, Irfan Khan, tried to buy a flat in the complex in 1971. When he asked for the price to be reduced, he was told to negotiate directly with the owner. The broker took him to the penthouse of A Block where, to his surprise, he came face-to-face with Meena Kumari. The actress asked Khan what he did for a living. Irfan Khan, who was working then for the weekly ‘Current’ edited by

DF Karaka

, replied that as a journalist he could not afford the price. Kumar said, “Aap likhte hain? Phir theek hai,” before instructing the protesting broker to slash the price.

She then turned to Khan and said something he never forgot, “Jo likhte hain, unki hum bahut izzat karte hain (I respect those who write).”

Much has changed since in both the architecture and ethos of the neighbourhood. The current crop of

New Bandra

buildings with their multi-level parking, treeless compounds, and CCTVs are in stark contrast to Cozihom’s community-fomenting design. “The builder could have used up the two spare plots to make two more buildings. But he left them for the residents to enjoy,” says Madhu

Poplai

, secretary of the Pali Hill Residents Association, who moved here in 1992. “So we have a beautiful lawn, a playground, we built a walking path for the elderly… [there’s] a feeling of community.”

Bandra’s reputation for community and cosmopolitanism recently took a hit when an actor claimed he was not allowed to rent in a neighbouring building because he was Muslim. Poplai bristles at mention of the incident. “There has never been any sort of discrimination [here], in fact, quite the opposite,” she says. She and Bharadwaj enumerate the different communities and religions in the complex as well as the inter-faith marriages.

Still, not everything is rosy. In typical Mumbai fashion, there was a prolonged dispute over ground rent after Meena Kumari’s passing (the land now belongs to her descendants). And the camaraderie between newer neighbours doesn’t seem quite as strong. “Lots of new residents use their flats like lodging houses – leaving early, coming in late,” says Poplai.

Older residents hold on to traditions like the famous

Cozihom Holi

party that hosts some 400 people from the area. Every Sunday morning, residents still gather to play volleyball with friends. Before he became a star, says Poplai, Akshay Kuma also came to play, bringing breakfast for everyone.

The ground is still festooned with the red seeds of the saga trees that Sameera Khan remembers. Bharadwaj still looks forward to awakening to the bells of St Anne at 5:30am. And a new generation of children plays in the compound every evening. “They play and play until they hear the Angelus bells ring at 7pm,” says Poplai. “Then they rush home.” Just like the old days.

- Genesia Alves

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