By Genesia Alves

Old-timers have childhood memories of walking up Pali Hill, or as they used to call it, ‘Khandala Ghat’. Mud paths, early morning mists caught in the green canopy, and at the top, a view of Bandra station in one direction, and the expanse of ocean in the other.

Hidden in the wooded dells and tufted hillocks were the old bungalows of affluent British, Parsi, and Catholic families. But locals from the ‘plains’ and wadis had no less an intimate relationship with the hill. Some walked up to mass at St Anne’s, while residents of Pali Village would groan at the ‘loat’—rivers of red earth cascading downhill every monsoon.

By the late sixties, the bungalows were joined by apartment blocks. Among the first constructions were blocks A, B and C of Cozihom Apartments, built in 1969 on nearly three acres of land owned by the actress Meena Kumari and a small portion of freehold land. When blocks D and E were built a few years later (at four flats per floor, ten floors per block, they took the total to 158 apartments) Cozihom rivaled nearby Manju Mahal and Metropolitan buildings in number of occupants. But with its large grounds, it remained free of their suffocating density.

Today, when not just Pali Hill but all of Bandra feels so crowded, within Cozihom’s sprawling green compound, it still feels like “old Pali Hill”.

Suman Bharadwaj, now 95, moved into Cozihom when her husband retired from the army in 1971. Fresh from a Banaglore posting, she remembers walking down the sharp incline into her flat, “I fell so in love with the view I forgot the climb back up.” She’d watch the fishing boats go out at dawn then sail back hours later, the sunset glowing in their wake. As night fell, intermittent flashes from the small lighthouse in Khar-Danda would tattoo the night sky.

Pali Hill is still forested with laburnums and jacarandas. You can still catch a flash of a kingfisher through the rain trees. But the old residents had some rare sights, like India’s finest ornithologist Salim Ali walking the hill, binoculars in hand, taking notes and making bird calls.

Rarer still to spot were the film royalty who came to hide in the hill. Dev Anand, Sunil Dutt, Gulzar, Dilip Kumar, the Kapoors all bought land or homes in the area. (You can catch a glimpse of Cozihom in the films, ‘Khoobsurat’ (1980) and 1975’s ‘Mili’.) Several film personalities have lived in Cozihom over the years, Deepika Padukone being the most recent, but the complex has always housed all sorts of people.

Journalist Sameera Khan tells the story of how in 1971, her father, Irfan Khan, tried to buy a flat in the complex. Her father wanted the price reduced and was asked to directly negotiate with the owner. The broker took him to the penthouse of A Block where, to his surprise, he came face-to-face with Meena Kumari, who owned several flats in the complex. The actress asked Khan what he did for a living. Mr Khan, who was working then for the weekly ‘Current’ edited by D.F. Karaka, replied that as a journalist he could not afford the high price. Kumar said, “’Aap likhte hain? Phir theek hai,” before instructing the protesting broker to slash the price.

She then turned to Khan and said something he never forgot, “Jo likhte hain, unki hum bahut izzat karte hain (I respect those who write).”

Much has changed since in both the architecture and ethos of the neighbourhood. The current crop of New Bandra buildings with their multi-level parking, treeless compounds, and CCTVs are in stark contrast to Cozihom’s community-fomenting design. “The builder could have used up the two spare plots to make two more buildings. But he left them for the residents to enjoy,” says Madhu Poplai, secretary of the Pali Hill Residents Association, who moved here in 1992. “So we have a beautiful lawn, a playground, we built a walking path for the elderly… [there’s] a feeling of community.”

Bandra’s reputation for community, and cosmopolitanism, recently took a hit when an actor claimed he was not allowed to rent in a neighbouring building because he was Muslim. Poplai bristles at the mention of the incident. “There has never been any sort of discrimination [here], in fact, it’s quite the opposite,” she says. She and Bharadwaj enumerate all the different communities and religions represented in their complex as well as the number of inter-faith marriages.

Still, not everything is rosy. In typical Mumbai fashion, there was a prolonged dispute over rents after Meena Kumari’s passing—the land now belongs to her descendants—bringing much unwanted attention to the quiet society.

And the camaraderie between newer neighbours doesn’t seem quite as strong. “Lots of new residents use their flats like lodging houses – leaving early, coming in late,” says Poplai. “They seem oblivious to the intangible asset this building is to them. Within the compound walls, the noisy city disappears.”

Older residents hold on to traditions like the famous Cozihom Holi party that hosts some 400 people from the building and around. And every Sunday morning, residents and their friends still gather to play volleyball. The players’ ages range from 45 to 65. “Before he became the very big star he is, Akshay Kumar used to come play with friends who lived here,” Poplai says. “He’d bring breakfast for everyone.”

The ground is still festooned with the red seeds of the old saga trees that Sameera Khan remembers stood sentinel in the compound. And Bharadwaj says she still looks forward to the bells of St Anne’s at 5:30 am. A new generation of children plays in the compound every evening, sometimes swarming up the stairs to see Poplai’s baby granddaughter.

“They play and play until they hear the Angelus bells of St Anne’s Church ring at 7pm,” says Poplai. “Then they rush home.” Just like the old days.

(A version of this article appeared in the print edition of Times of India Mumbai on November 12.)