Round And About Alibaug

About Town

What makes Alibaug tick? What makes it such an attractive place that whoever visits it, aspires to own a piece of land there. FARZANA BEHRAM CONTRACTOR goes round and about town

Alibaug is more than just the shimmering sea, surf, sun and sand. First of all, Alibaug is mainland, not an island town as one easily gets mislead into believing. Perhaps it’s the effect of taking a boat from bustling Bombay, the ozone hitting you in the face and reaching an idyllic setting within minutes, that creates this misconception.

The best way to go across is to take a ferry from the Gateway of India to the Mandwa jetty. It costs about Rs 100, a little less or a little more if you buy a ticket for the lower deck or the AC cabin. But whatever class of travel, everybody gets there in roughly 45 minutes!

At the Mandwa jetty your boat gets in line with a dilapidated trawler, parked alongside the pier, which is used as an alighting deck before you again cross over, jumping up the broken, concrete steps of the jetty. Tricky business if the sea is choppy and this trawler and your own boat are both bobbing and bouncing madly. Somehow, like how we manage everything in India, we manage these two transfers too and trudge down the very long and shoddily built concrete pier to the waiting vehicle. Headgear essential. The sun just glares down on you, burns your skin.

The porter system is rather unique, as you can see from the picture alongside, but it works and it is quaint. Though it is best not to look around, for the ugliness of the landing jetty and the surrounding infrastructure hits you hard and you wonder; is this the best we are capable of? Is this where an Azim Premji alights to get to his Alibaug home? Or a Parmeshwar Godrej?

It is easy to get familiar with Alibaug. It´s got one long road that leads from the jetty to the Alibaug town, about 20 kms away. On either side of the road there are smaller roads, the left leading to the hills, the right to the beach fronts. There are innumerable villages along the way, of which the well-known ones are Awas, Zirad, Chondhi, Kihim, Thull.

The town has changed over the years, as you would expect any place to. For better and for worse. The good part is, it seems more prosperous. The market place in Chondhi is bustling. The fisherwomen seem a happy lot. Jabbering away, so confident of the fresh catch they are selling that they ask you to pay them the next day, after you have eaten their fish and found it satisfactory.

There is also Prashant, a provision store which would parallel the best in Bombay. Like, say Rustoms in Colaba, which is alas, now defunct. At Prashant General Stores you will find every little gourmet requirement, including foreign goodies. Pasta, sauce, cheese, dressing, coffee, chocolate, mustard; you name it, you got it! For Alibaug this is a luxury and just shows how the town is growing.

Then there is the amazing ice cream shop in Chondhi, Santosh Ice Cream Centre. The creamiest of hand-churned ice cream at Rs 125 a kilo! That’s like half the price and much better than what we get in Bombay! Santosh ice cream is a steal!

When I went to the main town of Alibaug to eat what turned out to be an excellent seafood meal at Sanman, I accidentally stumbled upon a bakery. Now, that was a delightful discovery. The bakery was large, clean and very classy. Its owner, an upright, stately woman, Mrs Smita Patil, was responsible for running it so sucessfullly. It had display cases full of attractive cakes and pastries and biscuits. Judging from the number of customers who walked in and out you could see it was a popular place.

I had heard about Israel Street and the fact that there were Jewish people still living in Alibaug. That there was a synagogue around here too. In my wanderings, I realised not only was Sanman situated on Israel Street, but there was also a Jewish man living round the corner making some terrific ice cream soda, right there.

The 70 year old place is called S. David and the proprietor is Levy Yosef Wakrulkar. Levy turned out to be rather reserved and cautious at first, reluctant to speak. But eventually he opened up like the bursting of a dam. He brought out for me to taste, the many coloured aerated drinks that he produced, including a falooda. He sells about 1000 bottles a day in summer.

Apparently there used to be many Jews who formerly lived in Alibaug, though the numbers have dwindled now. In 1969, 80% of the population went away to Israel, that is about 30 to 40 families. But Levy’s father stayed on. Levy who belongs to the 7th generation was born here and went to a Konkan school and speaks Marathi fluently. He is married to a Jewish girl from Dombivli. Sinora Bhatekar and has two children, Aeyaal and Aadiel.

These days, one reads now and then in the newspapers that real estate prices in Alibaug are sky rocketing and posh houses are coming up. But to the first time visitor this is not very evident. Quite simply because most of these lovely homes are off the road that you travel on from Mandwa jetty to Alibaug and beyond to Kashid and Murud Janjira. The rich and the famous have houses on the beach or in the hills, surrounded by thick foliage, hidden from ‘common eyes’.  So what is left for the passer-by to see are just the occasional boundary walls and iron gates of those who did build houses along the road many years ago, when Alibaug was still an undiscovered, sleepy town and the need to stay away from the main road wasn’t there.

Unfortunately, Alibaug which is still more a village than anything else is getting ruined. Like what is happening to the rest of Maharashtra and even all of India, is happening here. Haphazard growth, where old rustic huts are pulled down and replaced by cheap, concrete structures, where locals sell off their property at astronomical prices and move to urban areas.

But admittedly for us, the Bombaywalla, it is a great getaway, right in our backyard. Alibaug is to Bombay what East Hampton is to New York. That it took so long to get established as such, is what surprises me.

I first visited Alibaug 25 years ago and often times since, but I have never been impressed by it. I mean, what is there to really crow about it. No real natural beauty, unless you are on the waterfront at Mandwa or by the beach along its long coast. Or better still, high up on a hill from where you can see the dense green plains as well as the sea in the distance. Apart from such locations Alibaug can be quite mediocre.

But yet many people fervently hope that maybe, one day, they may own a little bit land there. So why is that? Quite simply it’s the joy of being able to build your very own dream house, with your own private pool, a tennis court perhaps and a garden, a vegetable patch perhaps plant trees too – something one can never do, living in matchbox apartments, in the high rise slums of Bombay. And so the mad rush for that acre of land on earth, you can call your own. That is the key to Alibaug’s secret.

But recently I also discovered another facet that makes Alibaug attractive. Its full time residents. A bunch of extra special people who wanted a quality lifestyle and decided to put their money where their mouth is. People who shunned the glam life in the prime of their life, chucked away their safe jobs and businesses in Bombay and went away to Alibaug to find what they were seeking. Like Sajid Peerbhoy who sold his ad agency and came away to live in Nyasa. Or Kalpana Jain, a danseuse from Delhi who organises dance workshops for children and who intends to open a dance academy in Alibaug soon.

Like Sunanda and Albert Bangafoe who have been living there since 2006 in the house that they literally built by themselves. Who print fabric with vegetable dye and supply to well-known companies in Bombay. And who (along with Milind Soman) are building a Spa on 13 acres of land on the Alibaug-Roha road. Sunanda who launched a label called Ethnic Heart in the 80s is as earthy as possible. To the question; "How do you spend your time in Alibaug?" She retorts, "Time, I have no time, I am busy every second of the day!"

There is also Ralli Jacob and his wife Perin, Anjani Khanna and Anjali Aney, all of who are potters.

Ralli Jacob is a man of strong opinions. He and his wife Perin are probably the earliest who moved from Bombay - 1976, which means they have been living in Alibaug for 34 years. He used to be the Art Director at Clarion Advertising when he quit his job to find a cleaner and greener environment. Both Perin and he studied Commercial Art. It was Perin who was the original potter. Ralli took it up only when his romantic notions of becoming an agriculturist came to naught. "It was not easy to do that when we moved here, even installing a kiln was opposed by the local authorities," says the man who takes up cudgels on behalf of the people, who fights for causes, be it the sand stealing mafia or saving the mangroves at Mandwa which builders are trying to convert into luxury villas and malls. If the Alibaug airport plan has been scrapped, members of the 14 villages upon which the airport was to come up on, have Ralli to thank. "That fight had gone on for five years," informs Ralli.

Anjani Khanna has been living and sculpting in Alibaug since 10 years. High temperature, wood fired ceramics to be accurate. She lives in peaceful isolation in Satirje village and is very happy with her lifestyle.

Anjali Aney gets away to Alibaug for months on end disappearing straight into her studio which is situated at the end of her garden. Her husband, the well-known filmmaker Mahesh Aney, thinks her works are so good he doesn´t mind that he has to fend for himself when Anjali does her disappearing act. What started as a hobby for Anjali is a full time occupation now, though she only creates for the love of it. She is okay if it sells, she is okay if it doesn´t. Though she is happiest when she is called ´an artist´.

As a final thought on life in Alibaug; if you can live the way Meeka and Prem Mahtani do, surrounded by over a dozen Gir cows, close to nature, simply, purely, with a clean heart, with your own little temple on the premises, go for it, buy that acre of land for yourself, create, grow. After all, you live just once, even if there are many lives.