Rafique Baghdadi, The Man Who Married Bombay's History

Meet The Man Who Knows Everything About The City

He Sold Himself To The City's History To Give Us The Gift Of The Present

“S-S-R-E-G-E. His name was S.S Rege,” Rafique Baghdadi tries to enunciate the name of the man that inspired him to be who he is today. 69-year-old Baghdadi's pending dental work has made him a speller. “Rege was a librarian at Siddharth College when I was studying there. I used to take newspaper cut-outs about Bombay to him and he used to store it and never give it back. I couldn’t understand why. One day I went and attended his lecture on Bombay’s old buildings and I was fascinated,” he said.

Baghdadi never looked back since that day. The man of many talents went and consumed every cup of Bombay he could find which led to him becoming one of Mumbai’s premier historian helping countless journalists, artists, movie buffs, researches, students and more along the way.

Occupying as little space in the city infamous for its space issues, he has let Bombay be the land shark in his house as well. Towers upon towers of books spring up in every corner of this small room in the century old Khan building in Dockyard. There is a colony of Urdu writers in a tower beside his cupboard that houses his soap and toothbrush. There is also a colony of food based novels, documents and research behind an Almirah and directly opposite to these are the towers of Graphic novels and Comic books. Besides these, there are many more towers on Religion, Philosophy and a separate stack of movie DVDs for his Film Club.

Collecting absolutely any data that could tell him more about his identity and his connection to the city has become his obsession. Contrary to popular belief, Baghdadi doesn’t think he is a part of Afghan refugees that settles in the area. “I belong to the village Giriya in Vijaydurg of the Konkan region. My father had his story about how we came from Iraq but were shipwrecked. Every community has a shipwreck story and they believe they are the products of that shipwreck, be it the Jews, Parsis or me, a Baghdadi. There are actually three types of Baghdadis which are Negroid, Fair and Dark. Who knows where I belong?" he said.

This national award winning film critic had his first brush with the addictive Mumbai cinema world through his father. “My grand-father moved to Mumbai and my father worked as an electrician for Bombay Talkies with Germans. I helped him while I was studying Electrical and Radio Engineering. Dilip Kumar, Pran were regulars there," he said. Baghdadi dabbled with English literature and studied law as well but life had other plans for him. He became a rolling snow ball that kept gathering more and more information about the city and its many stars.

Before Baghdadi became a film connoisseur, a regular doses of films in his childhood was enough for him to label himself a loafer. “He studied at the nearby Rosary school where his friends shared many tales. “We had a school holiday on thursday and we would watch three back to back films in three different theatres. On Fridays we would buy magazines and books in Chor Bazaar and make a list of good movies being shown in nearby theatres. There were around 20 cinema theatres in Grant Road out of which only 14 remain. Mostly mornings had good shows. On Sundays we would go to King Circle at 4 pm for the book sale where we usually bought our collections. If one wants to know anything about their city, they should consult the Gazetteer book. It used to come at Rs 80 for three volumes during my time but it is unaffordable for me now," he said. He has also stopped collecting graphic novels as they are expensive.

The family of eight members lived together in the room here in Dockyard. He is the eldest of four brothers and two sisters who have taken their own lead in life. To a passerby, it would seem that his house belongs to an addict. The only difference is that Baghdadi gets high on anything Mumbai, a drug that has taken over his entire life. He never married. Growing up in this neighbourhood was enough proof for him about the true cosmopolitan nature of the city. His building housed Chinese, Christians, Parsis, Marwadis and Muslims when he was young. He even studied at the nearby Rosary school that had a strong Christian influence. “There was a feeling of community within us. We grew up together watching the same films, listening to the same music and going to the same school. Mumbai was welcoming expats and was truly cosmopolitan,” he said. It houses a majority of Muslim crowd now with a prayer notice stuck near the staircase.

History often comes with its baggage and more so for Baghdadi. His friends humour him by saying that he will be killed by the tower of books if they collapse on him and he thinks that’s actually the best possible death. Besides four buckets of water that he diligently fills at 1o' O clock after his reading and writing session, Baghdadi sleeps in between the spaces left by the stalagmitic cave of books. With a sole shirt hanging between the space not occupied by books, even here the city imitates his life as there no space for one to walk. There is no kitchen or bathroom and he boasts of no other possessions but his books, old movie posters and political maps of Mumbai from 1914 and 1936. He can't buy another space or buy a computer because of lack of funds and high cost of living.

"I miss my mother's cooking," he says when asked about what does he miss the most about the city. His parents passed away around 30 years ago. He often digresses mid topic and wonders how to deflect the information on him by talking about books and movies. His grandfather and a small girl from the neighbourhood peep from the black and white photos above the platform of his supposed kitchen that has been taken over by more stacks of books. A blue colored Salaah prayerbook rests brightly on the old stove area. "I am a student of Islam but not a practicing Muslim," he says looking at his books. A bottle of Oban single malt whiskey smiles at him from behind. In the absence of a kitchen, he eats all his meals at nearby hotels and restaurants and takes a trip down nostalgia lane at 8 pm every night for his regular drink before retiring into the fog of the harbour line local train.

Baghdadi keeps moving forward and backward in his timeline of personal events. Instead of flowing like a river, it moves back and forth like the needle of a handloom machine, weaving pattern after pattern of his interesting his life.

Baghdadi held many jobs out of which his stint at Jaico Bookstore was prominent. "It was my first job after I graduated with my B.A in English Literature Degree. I had been studying at the Government Law College and writing for the campus magazine. I dropped out as I was academically weak. The owners of the bookstore let me write for the newspaper owned by them. My longest work experience was with Business India magazine. I barely worked for 5-7 years at all my jobs," he said.

The 1960s were the most formative years for Baghdadi. "The New Wave of Indian Cinema had arrived in the late 60s. It was truly the golden period. We got to interview so many stars, directors and artists. Although they were not a commercial success, they laid the foundations of Bollywood," he said. Baghdadi wrote for most of the publications from that time including the Times, Free Press Journal, Indian Express, The Daily, Sunday Observer and more. "Newspapers were encouraging and had space to accommodate us writers. I wrote about everything from Films, books, food, music and anything that caught my fancy," he said. "World Cinema did not come to movie theares. We could see only Hindi and American movies. We saw world cinema at the various consulates around the city. We would see Polish movies in the Poland consulate, British films in Max Mueller, French films in Alliance Francaise and more. Consulates were very open to children and adults. there was a sense of community there too," he said.

There was even a documentary on him titled 'Do Rafique' as he was interviewed by Director Rafeeq Esmail. It was a Majlis production by PSBT and Doordarshan where both of them spoke about their homes, neighbourhoods and communities. Baghdadi released his first book a few years ago titled 'Talking Bombay' about the talkies of Hindi cinema.

He assists many journalists who write about the city and its filmy legacy even today. He has given countless interviews and shared his knowledge with every visual and digital medium. But his survival is through the dozen walks he organises for people. His most popular walk is the city and the cinema walk on Sundays followed by the Irani Cafe walk on Saturdays. Among his other walks are the Ramzan food walks, Heritage buildings walks and more. He organises local tours for heritage institutes, locals, foreigners and consulates on request. He even held a walk about cinema for MAMI delegates two years ago.

“I plan to organise a walk in Bandra but I have some two to six months of research left to do. I am studying it now and have taken solitary walks but no group walks yet,” he said. The youngsters in his walks keep challenging him to step up his game. “They are so internet savvy and fast. I have to be young to keep up. I still write longhand which I'm sure they have not even heard of. I like to take the older generations on walks. They get nostalgic and tell me their stories. I always learning something new in these tours. The only problem is that the footpath is disappearing and I don't know where to take people for a walk," he said.

Baghdadi still believes that people have more to tell him than what he has to offer them. He is an author, writer, collector, historian and raconteur of Mumbais history and has spent his entire life, right from childhood, documenting what he knows best, the city. "It is all about people opening up their houses to people who seek history. It is all preserved right there," he adds.

A fact-collector, he often calls Mumbai a fictitious city. "Mumbai is completely man made, it is a fiction," he said referring to the reclamation of land to join the original seven islands. If he had any idea of the Game of Thrones series, he would call Bombay, the free city of Braavos; wealthy with many islands.

There are many things he holds very dear to his heart and some are attached to legendary monsoon season that he is researching on currently. “I would run to Nariman Point with my friends on every 6th or 7th June and wait for the monsoon to arrive and it never failed us. It would be like a scene from ‘Ten Commandments’ with giant black clouds coming together and it would pour. Now it doesn't even come by late June,” he said. That are many other things he wishes he could change like the number of bikes on the road. “Earlier, NCPA would have cars lined up in the parking and now it is all bikes. I can't even cross the road," he said.

As the current socio-political scene seems volatile and Mumbai’s dreadful past forever taints its history, he remains optimistic. “I know that no matter how much you shake Mumbai, it will always come back to normal. There was no such thing called the Bombay-Mumbai fight earlier. Before the whole official name change, people were still calling it Mumbai, some were calling it Bombay," said Baghdadi. What surprised him are the riots that he witnessed. "Most riots did not happen close to our area. The 1992 riots really did change something. Never before had we seen such fear. It wasn't a part of Mumbais cosmopolitan culture to be fearful. The incident most people keep forgetting is the explosion at Mazgaon docks in 1944 in which a ship carrying gold, ammunition and food blew up, lot of people died,” he said.

Like everything, a city changes but what doesn't change is, “Human behaviour. It remains constant. Man needs to connect to people. If you don’t connect with them, they are just their religious identities. They are not a person like you or me," he said. It was time for lunch and Baghdadi urgently stepped out because otherwise he would 'collapse' like many unfortunate structures in the city. He put on a pair of slippers and locked his house with a key attached to a Lord Ganesha keychain. It is the beginning of auspicious things.

Photographs: Karan Khosla/@thekhos

Words: Preksha Malu