In the annals of visual depiction of Bombay through history, a name that should (and probably will) stand the test of time is James Forbes. Having arrived on the shores of Bombay at the precocious age of 16 in the year 1766, he spent much of the subsequent two decades in different administrative posts for an East India Company on it’s rise to power across various parts of Western India. But while his diligence and hard work paid off professionally (retiring with a small fortune in 1784 at the ripe old age of 35 as Collector of Dabhol in Gujarat), his inquiring mind applied to a new and unknown land laden with possibilities led him to create over 50,000 pages of his memoirs spread across his time in the subcontinent, amongst which were several hundred illustrations by his amateur (but skilled) hand on landscape, architecture, flora, fauna, etc., and hidden amongst these pages were found the earliest paintings in the history of Bombay Island by a resident artist.
These watercolours no doubt changed several hands over the previous 250-odd years, and the bulk of them, the ones grouped into volumes of Forbes’ assembled folios that his descendants inherited, eventually found their way into reputed institutions the world over, but there were many that Forbes over the years sporadically sent to friends and family in England, accompanying letters describing his life and musings as he came of age. Of these, the one seen here (and possibly the only one of Bombay held in private hands), incredibly, seems to be of a view he glanced on his very first day in the subcontinent, immediately after he set foot on the shores of Bombay! Having arrived by ship at the island’s docks “unknown, friendless, and forsaken”, he knew of a gentleman by name, and on inquiring further, was directed to his home. Called ‘The Retreat’, that villa, seen here, is the precise site of the Tejpal auditorium today, and in the middle foreground is Gowalia Tank, today’s August Kranti maidan.
Gowalia Tank - James Forbes, c. 1766
The idyllic scene presented beautifully juxtaposes concurrent existences – while the local populace, grazing their cows and drawing potable water from a well, exist very much in a rural subsistance, a form of gentrified suburbanity seems to have been achieved by Company officials and their families, exemplified by the two ladies on the right near the villa taking their constitutional, and the family in up front and centre in the extreme foreground spending recreational time. The gentleman, as captioned on the reverse of the painting, is one Mr. John Hunter and (presumably) his wife and daughter along with an ayah accompanying his toddler, as was the custom for senior East India Company officials at the time. Hunter over the years proved to be a good friend to the artist, who writes “from the first hour I saw him until the day of his death, at the venerable age of fourscore, he was indeed my friend!”
Gowalia Tank was, in the early 1700s, described as being full of “fish and fowl”, somewhat evident even here by the fishing activity in progress. In all probability an ancient tank that was renovated over time to make it more accessible, it served as the fulcrum point of a Brahmin village as well as a watering hole for all manner of fauna.
A typical excursion to the tank from Fort at this time was described as being “set forth on large Persian carpets, under the spreading shade of lofty trees, where variety of wine and musick (exhilarate) the spirits to a cheerful livelyness and renders every object divertive”.
Such views formed the principal recreation of Forbes’ life in the subcontinent. “Drawing to me had the same charm as music to the soul of harmony”, he writes eloquently. The pursuit beguiled the monotony of four Indian voyages (at a time when it took months to travel across continents), and cheered his solitary residence in the interior of the country. And we today have this zest and passion that he had for sketching to thank for offering us glimpses of a Bombay that we have lost forever, which, as always, remains a place in time.
(Picture and article by Mrinal Kapadia, resident of Cumballa Hill, he is a collector and researcher, and can be reached on mrinal.kapadia@gmail.com or via Instagram on @mrinal.kapadia)
