Category: Ash

The Mythical Bombay Back Bay Station

Reading Time: 3 minutes

I administer an unlisted Facebook group known as “Bombay, I Remember”. It is a group for reminiscences of its members in the pre-1995 Bombay (when the city was renamed to Mumbai), but nowadays it is kept alive with a lot of historic content about Bombay. Several posts have covered the railway line of the former Bombay, Baroda and Central India (BB&CI) line, particularly the stations at the start of the line.

I have not found any old document that mentions this “Bombay Back Bay” station.

The Bombay Builder

Today, I found an archive of the Bombay Builder covering 1867 at the Asiatic Library’s online archive known as Granth Sanjeevani. The specific page below is dated 5 April 1867. Note that date.

Note the stations in the Locality column.
Note the stations in the Locality column.

Two things stood out for me. The terminus at Colaba was there in April 1867. The second station is called Esplanade Station. This is an added mystery, as the Esplanade in those days was too far from this train line to deserve the title. As this is a journal for engineers, they were interested in girders and overbridges, in addition to stations.

Western Railway

The Western Railway (WR) has been the name of the former BB&CI since 1951, so it should know its own history. Its website is very flaky, so here is a screenshot of its About Us > Milestones page.

WR milestones.
WR milestones.

Notice that the WR timeline says the line to Colaba was extended in 1873. How can the earlier reference in the Bombay Builder mention a Colaba Terminus before 5 April 1867? The entry for 1867 mentions the start of a local service between Back Bay and Virar (then spelt Veraur) on 12 April 1867.

I decided to check the newspapers of the day, as scanned by Granth Sanjeevani.

The Bombay Gazette of 12 April 1867.
The Bombay Gazette of 12 April 1867.

I checked the date of this new service, the next day and a few days on either side. Not a single mention. Surely a service covering the length of Bombay was worth a mention? BB&CI used to advertise almost daily, but no mention of a new service?

The Wikipedia Entry

The Wikipedia entry for Churchgate railway station says:

“By 1867, a track along the foreshore, further than Grant Road station was constructed, up to the station named as “Bombay Backbay” near Marine Lines. On 12 April 1867, the first suburban train was started with one train each way from Virar to Bombay Back Bay. The stations were then named, “Viraur, Neela, Bassein, Panje, Borewla, Pahadee, Andaru, Santa Cruz, Bandora, Mahim, Dadur, Grant Road and Bombay Backbay”. In year 1870, Churchgate was first time mentioned as the station. The line further extended towards Colaba in 1872, and goods shed was built there.”

The spellings in those days were quite fluid, so they are a little different from the ones in the Bombay Builder. The unknown Wikipedia contributor has a different date (1872) for the extension of the line to Colaba compared to the WR date of 1873. They mention this mythical “Backbay” (actually two words, Back Bay) station as being “near Marine Lines.

A letter to the editor

The Times of India, 2 September 1868
Letter to the Editor, The Times of India, 2 September 1868

Where does this leave me? I have not found any old document that mentions this Back Bay station. Until I do so, I will treat Back Bay Station as a colloquial reference to Church Gate Station (whose name slowly became one word). If you go to that Wikipedia page for Church Gate Station, you will see that it was opened in 1867!

Wikipedia entry for Church Gate station.
Wikipedia entry for Church Gate station.

Here is another modern reference to Church Gate being called Back Bay.

Church Gate being called "Bombay Backbay".
Church Gate being called “Bombay Backbay”.

As for the other mystery of an Esplanade Station between Colaba Terminus and Churnee Road (now spelt Charni Road), I think it too is a colloquial reference. Perhaps the engineer who wrote that entry was a brief visitor and wrote it up when back in the UK?

Colaba Station Dates

I found this document “Things of India Made Plain, or A Journalist’s Retrospect” by W Martin Wood in the more navigable archive – the Wayback Machine. It mentions in an entry dated 29 September 1873 that the Colaba station was well towards completion that year, after a period of seven years, suggesting that it was started in 1866.

Colaba station took 7 years to be built.
Colaba station took 7 years to be built.

The previous page has an entry dated 9 October 1872, mentioning the procurement of the land for the station.

1872 entry.
1872 entry.

Those words from 1872 suggest that there were railway tracks to Colaba in 1867 (also mentioned by the Bombay Builder), but the grand station was not completed until seven years later. Those tracks carried the cotton to the docks there during the US Civil War and to the Cotton Green. There is a plaque at Bombay Central station that acknowledges a Colaba Causeway station built in 1870 and another reference that the line used to go to Arthur Bunder.

Drive Across the Contiguous 48 United States

Reading Time: 6 minutesThe United States of America is one of my favourite travel destinations. The people there speak a version of English that I understand and they seem to understand me. The natives are friendly and we fight in all wars side by side. A post-retirement trip on my drawing board is the drive across the 48 states that make up the contiguous United States (CONUS); therefore it omits Hawaii and Alaska. This is a drive, not a leisurely sight-seeing journey. Continue reading

Captain Phirozshah Byramji Bharucha, DSO

Captain Bharucha
Reading Time: 2 minutes

On Facebook I read the following post:

“Col. Phirozshah Byramji Bharucha, who led the 14th Ferozepur Sikh regiment in the grueling hard fought key Battle of Gallipoli during World War I in 1915. While the 1981 Mel Gibson movie “Gallipoli” glorified the heroics of the Australian battalions during the Gallipoli campaign, the reality is that the fiercest, most difficult first wave of attacks to gain ground on territory held by the enemy was led by the gallant Sikhs under Col. Bharucha, which then cleared the way for the Aussies to advance. In doing so, the brave 14th Sikh front line battalion suffered a 80% casualty rate. “

The wrong person.
This is the wrong person being attributed to this battle.

Being an Aussie of Indian extraction, having served in the RAAF as an officer, I am always interested in the under-documented role of Indians at Gallipoli, so I began to read up on the King’s Own 14th Ferozepore Sikhs, which fought at the Battle of Krithia, with a loss of 80% of its strength, with only three Indian officers surviving. I was intrigued how an Indian doctor attached to a regiment could have “led” it.

Captain Heerajee Cursetjee

Yes, there was a Parsi doctor with the 14th Ferozepore Sikhs , but it was Lieutenant (later General) HJM Cursetjee, DSO. (Link here). His great grandfather’s statue in Bombay is best known as “Khada Parsi”. A detailed account of his service life is at the British National Army Museum. Do check it out.

Yes, Lt Cursetjee also earned a DSO and he was the Parsi with the 14th King’s Own Ferozepore Sikhs, but a different Parsi also with a DSO to his credit has been incorrectly identified with Gallipoli.

So where was Captain PB Bharucha during WW1? He was in the Indian Expeditionary Force “D” in Mesopotamia (link here, Page 4) (also here, Page 440). He was later a prisoner of war (link 1 here) (continued here). He did fight the Turks, but in a different theatre of war. He was indeed the first Indian to win the Distinguished Service Order. I salute his service.

So here is a corrected image below that should be shared if you want to attribute the right person.

This is the correct person who should be attributed the honour.

Categories in Outlook 2007

Reading Time: < 1 minutetags in Outlook 2k7My email client is Outlook 2007. I received an email from Feedblitz and noticed something new. There were keywords/tags visible above the From: line. As this notification was for this blog, I recognised them as the tags I had used in those posts.

message optionsUpon examining the full headers via the Options dialog, I noticed this extra line:

Keywords: XPM, Software, Anti Virus, Windows 7, firefox, Social Media, Windows XP Mode, SEO, twitter, obama, Affiliate Marketing

Moreover, the Options dialog itself displays the same words but you can see a Categories drop-down. I chose the “Clear all Categories” in the drop-down, and they were erased from the email, even though I later chose not to save changes.
I can’t find an explanation (too many common keywords in the search term) online and have asked a few friends. Going back over earlier emails from Feedblitz, I noticed they too showed these Categories. I recall reading that Microsoft Word Categories become Keywords in Outlook but can’t find the reference. Anyone have any clues?

Google Maps ranks rather high in AdWords

Reading Time: 2 minutesToorak cafeWhen you are trying to optimise your Google AdWords campaign so that your ads rank high for less money, you usually are sharpening your ad copy, improving your landing page, playing with the bid and so on. If you worked at Google Maps, you wouldn’t need to work so hard.

At least in Australia if you search for <placename> <word>, e.g. Toorak dentist, Werribee cafe, Narre Warren restaurant, the first (almost always) AdWords result is an ad for Google Maps.

You can see this in the image on the right. Another interesting discovery are the two Menulog ads – one is the gTLD .com and the other is the ccTLD .com.au. Nice technique to remember if you need to display more than one ad. Just buy a few ccTLDs, since the algo won’t know if the various domain names in different “countries” are the same entity.

San Mateo cafeMy next search was for a cafe in my old stomping ground, San Mateo, CA. Both Google and MenuLog were confused (click image on the left). I wasn’t logged in, but both remembered my previous search. Google Search showed the right results, but AdWords didn’t want me to leave these shores, choosing to show me an ad for Toorak cafes, and Menulog.com.au hedged its bets by showing me an ad for Armadale cafes, and Menulog.com showed me Toorak cafes. OK, these are broad match ads for the word “cafe”, but why show an irrelevant city in the wrong country? Since Google isn’t paying for its top-ranking ads, I think it could have shown a PSA or none at all.

Yes, cafes are in a tough category for AdWords. Either you phrase match <placename> <cafe> for thousands of placenames (not practical) or load a whole bunch of negative keywords (not practical) — I’d rather not see this prime position taken up by Google Maps ads at all. You can see these ads for many location searches, Narre Warren cafesuch as dentists, restaurants, etc.

eBay can’t handle the place name Narre Warren, a Melbourne suburb. Search for Narre -Warren (that’s a negative Warren) and eBay will exhort you to buy a Barre, whatever that is. MyLocal gets too familiar — look for Narre Warren cafe and it will tell you to go to Narre Restaurant. Local search doesn’t seem easy for some companies. TrueLocal still wants me to go to the solitary cafe in Redfern. Menulog wants me to go to Barre, WA – apparently there is a cafe/restaurant of this name in Perth.

115° F in the shade

Reading Time: < 1 minuteI have been in Noida (outskirts of New Delhi) for the past two days in 43-47°C temperatures. The PC I am using is in a non-AC room, but when an AC room feels hot, you know it is hot! I heard that Melbourne is cold – not sure which I prefer. 😐

Abuelo’s Mexican Food Embassy, Tulsa

Reading Time: < 1 minuteAbuelo's TulsaFive of us went out to Abuelo’s at 10909 E 71st St South in Tulsa. We turned right off the freeway instead of left and managed to view all the other restaurants on the other side of the street, including one of my favourite chains – On the Border.

Didn’t have long to wait, being a table of 5, but there were lots of couples who seemed to have been there fore ages. They kept refilling our free corn chips and salsa (four different varieties). I picked the Monterey burrito specialty ($13.99), which includes four different burritos on a huge plate. Of course I couldn’t finish it, but I took home a doggie bag which was breakfast the next morning before our meeting.

Everyone agreed that it is one of the best American Mexican restaurants they had been to. Sadly, the chain is mainly East Coast and does not extend to NV or CA where I tend to go a lot.
Abuelo's Mexican Food Embassy on Restaurantica

Presentation at ABPNS 2007 Conference

Reading Time: < 1 minuteAsh speaking at ABPNS ConferenceThis morning I spoke to about 100 ladies at the Australian Birth and Post-Natal Services Conference at the Sofitel in Collins Street. The three-day event had been put together by Kelly Zantey of bellybelly.com.au. She has done well ranking for her site for the word “pregnancy” and is now on page 1 of Google.

The topic of my presentation was “How a Website Can Work for You”. Over 75% of the audience had a website and the rest were thinking of getting one.

2007 The Lizzies Winners Announced

Reading Time: < 1 minuteI was one of the judges for a couple of categories for the annual Sun Microsystems IT Journalism Awards, better known as The Lizzies. I judged the following:

Finalists: Best Technology Media Website

  • CNET << Highly Commended
  • ZDNet << Winner!
  • Whirlpool
  • Smh.com.au/technology
  • Pcworld.idg.com.au
  • Atomicmpc.com.au

Finalists: Best Personal Technology Title

  • APC
  • PC Authority << Winner!
  • PC User
  • Choice
  • Atomic
  • Home Entertainment

Gusworld has scooped the full list of winners. Congratulations to all the winners and

Consolidated Blog

Reading Time: < 1 minuteThis is the new home of all my blogs. Makes sense to have one blog with many topics than for numerous blogs to get an update a few months apart. There will usually be a Search Engine or High Tech flavour to the posts.

Mastodon