Nakhoda Tank

Holy Trinity Church

Colonial Bombay

GT Hospital

St Xavier’s School

Rogay family patriarch

Mohammad Ali Rogay

Elphinstone Institute

The area where Holy Trinity church stood

Anjuman-I-Islam Urdu Research Institute

Byandand, iconic structures of, made way for St Xavier’s andNinety years after two of south Mumbai’s most famous landmarks – Nakhoda Tank and the Holy Trinity Church – disappeared from the face of the city, members of the Bombay Local History Society last week managed to locate them with the help of century-old maps of Colonial Bombay.The story of Nakhoda Tank and the Holy Trinity Church is about the exchange of land that took place sometime in 1928, and offers a worthy model to emulate in these times when Mumbai is crammed, and land sharks have taken over most of the city.The exchange of land in 1928 involved the city’s two major educational institutes – theand the Anjuman-I-Islam – apart from GT Hospital, the management of the Holy Trinity Church, and descendants of the now forgotten Nakhoda Rogay – a prominent Konkani Muslim family from Western India.The foundation stone of the Holy Trinity Church was laid in 1887 and it was opened for worship in 1890. The first Holy Trinity Church was located in the area then known as Sonapur near Marine Lines, in a gully known as the Trinity Lane.Meanwhile, the, had left behind Rs 50,000 for the construction of a water tank. His son Mohammad Ameen Rogay undertook the construction which necessitated a further expense of Rs 30,000 raising the total cost to Rs 80,000. The Nakhoda Tank was one of the four major water tanks in the city, and became an architectural landmark. However, after a few years, it became infamous as a suicide point, mainly for those suffering from leprosy.In the immediate vicinity of the Nakhoda tank were the St Xavier’s School, the, and the GT Hospital. By the early 1880s, an intense debate regarding the fate of the tank was raged on in the city’s newspapers. Bishop Meurin of the St Xavier’s School wrote to Mohammad Ali Rogay, the grandson of the first Rogay, requesting that the tank be closed in order to accommodate the expanding needs of the college.In exchange, the Bishop proposed a fountain to perpetuate the memory of Roghay and the promise to provide free education to Muslim students.By this time, the use of Vehar Lake as a source of water for the city had already diminished the importance of the Nakhoda tank, but the municipality continued to draw upon the tank for several purposes. Rogay was also alarmed by the talks of a possible legislation giving the municipality absolute power while dealing with public works. He acknowledged the importance of St Xavier’s School, but laid out two conditions before giving his assent to Meurin’s proposal.Outlining his demands in The Times of India in July 1882, he demanded that a drinking fountain worth Rs 25,000 be constructed, and another Rs 25,000 worth scholarship be set aside to enable Indian students to travel to Europe for higher studies.Rogay, who was a contemporary of Badruddin Tyabji, died in 1910, and it seems that the municipality reclaimed the tank, leasing a major portion to the St Xavier’s School by the mid-1920s.Some portion was supposed to be used for the fountain, but the heirs of the Rogay family requested that the Anjuman-I-Islam School be allowed to use it as a playground. The Bombay government, however, advised the municipality to instead provide the land to expand GT Hospital.In exchange for the Anjuman-I-Islam withdrawing their claim to this parcel of land, it was proposed that a 2,000-square yard plot adjoining Anjuman-I-Islam which was leased to the Seventh-Day Adventist Mission be given to them.Professor Abdus Sattar Dalvi, director of the, told Mirror that this exchange reflected the cosmopolitan and the fairly open society of Colonial Bombay.“This is an interesting find and I hope this opens up more such explorations,” he said. Incidentally, Professor Dalvi’s office is located in the same building which was made possible due to the moving of the church.In a heritage walk organised by the Bombay Local History Society (BLHS) at St Xavier's College, members Aadil Desai, Sifra Lentin and Vinayak Talwar discovered the foundation stone of the church beneath the plaque commemorating the land exchange at the Anjuman-i-Islam High School.