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Sarthak is a 3rd year student of architecture at Georgio Institute of Technology, USA (dhingra.sarthak@gmail.com).

Location: Kala Ghoda, Fort

My mother first told me about Amira’s plans to visit Mumbai as a tourist and she suggested I accompany her. I must say that I am extremely glad I did. Not only did I visit parts of Mumbai that I had never known existed, it allowed me for the first time to actually feel truly at home in this city where I took a local train not because I absolutely had to. Over my years in Mumbai, I had witnessed sights of enthusiasm, of dedication, of perseverance, of sorrow, of humility and of joy that had made me proud to say that I was a part of this city. I am uncertain about how comfortable I would feel saying that today, I question how apt it is for one to feel like ‘a part’ of the whole that we characterize as our city. Most of us live so superficially and in our cushioned niches that we fail to be a part of the heart, the blood, the sweat and the tears that come to embody the character of our city. After getting just a small taste of the Mumbai experience I cannot say that I am a part of this city, I don’t know who is but I do feel more at home here.

Getting out of the taxi that brought us to the Fort area, we were not particularly looking for St Thomas’ cathedral yet but rather Yazdani bakery. Making our way through the hustle and bustle of the old financial district we noticed what resembled an under heighted clock tower, a little sign by the entry gate read ‘St Thomas’ cathedral’.

As one stands facing the gate there is very little indication architecturally of this being a church. Moving through the gate we are set on an angled approach as opposed to a linear approach most definite for church design as it was meant to be processional. You approach an exonarthex (outer entrance or lobby area) with two little engravings on stone from entirely different eras offering homage to the people credited for the creation and maintenance of the church. It leads into an endonarthex (inner entrance or lobby area) however not in the traditional sense and it feels like a vestibule of sorts. With the use of the narthex, the church suggests elements traditional to Byzantine architecture which dates back to the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. You view again a series of stone engravings however each one of these is remarkable in its own right. Each is a memorial to British parishioners, many of whom died young of disease or in battle.

The cathedral built in the early 1700’s is an amalgam of Neo-Classical and Neo-Gothic styles. It has a whitewashed interior and is furnished with polished brass, wood and stained glass windows. A little scale model of the church drew me towards it and informed me of the restoration work that was being done on the church. It was easy to identify strong architectural features such as buttressing columns that was a clear suggestion to Victorian-Gothic architecture. I was astounded by how ignorant I had been to the fact that I could find such architecture right at home. 

It took a moment of seated calm to realize what a religious edifice this was. Walking down the nave (central approach) towards the high altar which led me to the Gothic extension, the ceilings rose another 10 feet reaching a total height of nearly 30 feet and if you allow your eyes to follow the slender curvature of the roof, you will find some of the most beautiful stained glass works that you would have ever seen. Two parallel rows of choir stands lined the space perpendicular to the onlooker and a little gold bar blocked off the entire area. Multiple short Corinthian columns lined the area as if to point to the sheer weight of the structure. The entire space had an absolutely celestial feeling that is quite indescribable. The church might lack the scale and obvious grandeur as that of its contemporaries but the charm of the little Gothic extension and the entire cathedral’s willingness to survive was an absolute delight.

In the hope of being able to view the buttressed columns up close, we tried to go around towards the back of the cathedral and stumbled upon a playschool. This very playschool at some point might have been where the Cathedral & John Connon School, one of Mumbai’s oldest and finest schools began. One of the gates which the East India Company had built to protect their settlement was the entrance to the St. Thomas church. It was called Churchgate. That is why the whole area towards the West of the church is called “Churchgate” even today. I was not shocked or surprised as to how I had never known any of that, I had prepared myself or rather hoped to be surprised and I just smiled at myself.